Equilibrium behaviour of two cavity-confined polymers: effects of polymer width and system asymmetries

Abstract

Experiments using nanofluidic devices have proven effective in characterizing the physical properties of polymers confined to small cavities. Two recent studies using such methods examined the organization and dynamics of...

Characterizing interaction of multiple nanocavity confined plasmids in presence of large DNA model nucleoid

“…19 Such a landscape may generate the plasmid pole preference, an important feature of the plasmid distribution. More recently, D. Rehel et al 20 studied two polymer chains confined in cavity system via simulation, supporting the entropic segregation of plasmids.…”

Solvent effect on equilibrium organization of confined polymers

“…7 Other recent theoretical contributions provide a better understanding of two polymers in a good solvent inside asymmetric confinement, showing a stronger entropic repulsion in comparison to symmetric confinement. [15][16][17][18] Two polymers can be in a nested phase (with a nearly equal centre of mass) within strong confinement due to ordering or can form separate domains or partition from each other to minimize the free energy. 16,19,20 The present work deals with such a case, where we employ a simple lattice model of polymers to study how the solvent quality affects the equilibrium organization (such as the overlapping, partitioned state) of two polymers within strong confinement (both symmetric and asymmetric).…”

“…20 Numerous studies report that as the anisometry in confinement increases or polymer length decreases, the partitioning of the polymers becomes stronger. 16,30,31 Along with confinement shape and polymer length, properties like rigidity, 39 polymer chain topology, 30 and available volume fraction to the polymer, 32 also play key roles in the equilibrium statistics of two polymers inside confinement. These studies describe the ordered organization of polymers from the entropic-force and confinement-shape perspective, but the solvent-quality effect (enthalpic contribution) on the separation of two polymers within strong confinement still remains elusive.…”