D. Marenduzzo, C. Micheletti and E. Orlandini
Biopolymer organization upon confinement
J. Phys. Condens. Matter 22, 283102 (2010)
Abstract ,
Link to online article
ABSTRACT
Biopolymers in vivo are typically subject to spatial restrains,
either as a result of the substantial molecular crowding of the
cellular medium or by direct spatial confinement. The high level of
packing of DNA encountered in all types of organisms provides a
prototypical example of the ubiquity of biopolymer confinement and of
the several accompanying physical issues: How can the high level of
packing be compatible with the necessity to access and process the
genomic material? By which mechanisms it is avoided the eccessive
geometrical and topological entanglement of dense phases of
biopolymers? These and other fundamental questions have been addressed
in recent years by both experimental and theoretical means. A review
of the salient results, particularly those obtained by numerical
studies, is presented here. The review is mostly devoted to DNA
packaging inside bacteriophages, which is the best studied example
both experimentally and theoretically. Recent selected biophysical
studies of the bacterial genome and of chromosome segregation in
eukaryotes are also covered.