Comparative study of polymer looping kinetics in passive and active environments

Zhang, Bingjie; Lei, Ting; Zhao, Nanrong

doi:10.1039/d1cp00591j

Cited by 3 publications

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“…19 Inspired by the experiment, 19 we explore the possibility of employing a computational model of the transversely propelling polymer for passive cargo transport. Although there have been computational studies on the passive polymer in the presence of active particles due to its relevance in biology, [56][57][58][59][60] studies on active polymer dynamics in the presence of passive particles are still relatively limited. 61,62 To the best of our knowledge, there has been no investigation into how the self-propulsion and flexibility of active polymers can be utilised for passive particle aggregation and transportation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive particle transport using a transversely propelling polymer “sweeper”

Prathyusha

2023

Soft Matter

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive particle transport using a transversely propelling polymer “sweeper”

Prathyusha

2023

Soft Matter

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Polymer looping kinetics in active heterogeneous environments

2021

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Attractive crowding effect on passive and active polymer looping kinetics

Yan,

Zhao,

Zhao

2024

The Journal of Chemical Physics

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Loop formation in complex environments is crucially important to many biological processes in life. In the present work, we adopt three-dimensional Langevin dynamics simulations to investigate passive and active polymer looping kinetics in crowded media featuring polymer–crowder attraction. We find polymers undergo a remarkable coil–globule–coil transition, highlighted by a marked change in the Flory scaling exponent of the gyration radius. Meanwhile, looping time as a function of the crowder’s volume fraction demonstrates an apparent non-monotonic alteration. A small number of crowders induce a compact structure, which largely facilitates the looping process. While a large number of crowders heavily impede end-to-end diffusion, looping kinetics is greatly inhibited. For a self-propelled chain, we find that the attractive crowding triggers an unusual activity effect on looping kinetics. Once a globular state is formed, activity takes an effort to open the chain from the compact structure, leading to an unexpected activity-induced inhibition of looping. If the chain maintains a coil state, the dominant role of activity is to enhance diffusivity and, thus, speed up looping kinetics. The novel conformational change and looping kinetics of both passive and active polymers in the presence of attractive crowding highlight a rather distinct scenario that has no analogy in a repulsive crowding counterpart. The underlying mechanism enriches our understanding of the crucial role of attractive interactions in modulating polymer structure and dynamics.

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Comparative study of polymer looping kinetics in passive and active environments

Abstract: Intra-chain looping in complex environments is significant in advancing our understanding of biological processes in life. We adopt Langevin dynamics simulations to perform a comparative study of polymer looping kinetics...

Cited by 3 publications

References 69 publications

Passive particle transport using a transversely propelling polymer “sweeper”

Passive particle transport using a transversely propelling polymer “sweeper”

Polymer looping kinetics in active heterogeneous environments

Attractive crowding effect on passive and active polymer looping kinetics

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