Influences of flexible defect on the interplay of supercoiling and knotting of circular DNA*

Abstract

Abstract Knots are discovered in biophysical systems, such as DNA and proteins. Knotted portions in knotted DNA are significantly bent and their corresponding bending angles are comparable with or larger than the sharp bending angle resulting in flexible defects. The role of flexible defects in the interplay of supercoiling and knotting of circular DNA were predicted by a Monte Carlo simulation. In knotted DNA with a particular knot type, a flexible defect noticeably enhances the supercoiling of the knotted DNA and the decreasing excitation energy makes the knotted portion more compact. A reduction in twist rigidity and unwinding of flexible defects are incorporated into the numerical simulations, so that interplay of supercoiling and knotting of circular DNA is studied under torsional conditions. Increasing unwinding not only results in a wider linking number distribution, but also leads to a drift of the distribution to lower values. A flexible defect has obvious effects on knotting probability. The summation of equilibrium distribution probability for nontrivial knotted DNA with different contour length does not change with excitation energy monotonically and has a maximum at an intermediate value of excitation energy around 5k B T. In the phase space of knot length and gyration radius of knotted DNA, knot length does not anticorrelate with its gyration radius, which is attributed to the flexible defect in the knotted portion, which leads to the release of bending energy and inhibited the competition between entropy and bending energy.