Polymers ... but with a twist

Polymers ... but with a twist

Title of the project: The role of ring-polymer topology in macromolecular self-assembly and dynamics
Name of the VDSP student(s) & image credits: Roman Staňo
Project supervised by: Christos Likos

About me/us: Currently, I am in the final year of my doctoral studies, working with Christos N. Likos. In my research, I use computer simulations to explore polymers, colloids and other soft materials.

Image: Have you ever twisted a rope so much that it started winding and looping around itself? If yes, then you witnessed a turning point in a battle between torsional and bending degrees of freedom of the rope, both trying to get rid of the extra energy, which you just pumped into the system. If the torsional stress is too large, it can get converted into the bending stress, forming curved protrusions of sections of rope rotating around each other, coined supercoils.
Something similar can also happen to your DNA strands, but no worries, there are enzymes called gyrases, which can locally cut the DNA, release the excess stress, and then glue the DNA back to prevent supercoiling. Our questions are following: can we force these enzymes to work in the opposite way; instead of relaxing the stress, introducing more of it? If so, how can this affect the viscoelastic properties of DNA?