Extension of DNA in a nanochannel as a rod-to-coil transition
Douglas R. Tree, Yanwei Wang, and Kevin D. Dorfman
Accepted
DNA confinement in nanochannels is emerging as an important tool for genomics and an excellent platform for testing the theories of confined wormlike polymers. Using cutting-edge, large scale Monte Carlo simulations of asymptotically long wormlike chains, we show that, in analogy to the rod-to-coil transition for free wormlike polymers, there exists a universal, Gauss-de Gennes regime that connects the classic Odijk and de Gennes regimes of channel-confined chains. For DNA in a nanochannel, this Gauss-de Gennes regime spans practically the entire experimentally relevant range of channel sizes, including the nanochannels used in an incipient genome mapping technology.