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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 100: Poster Session I

AKB 100.19: Poster

Saturday, March 5, 2005, 16:45–18:45, Poster TU D

Dynamcis of Protein Binding to Nucleosomal DNA — •Wolfram Möbius and Ulrich Gerland — Department für Physik, LMU München

Binding of proteins to DNA target sites which are buried inside nucleosomes is sterically hindered and enabled only through thermal fluctuations. Such fluctuations temporarily unwrap the DNA from the histone, exposing a target site during a small fraction of the time [1]. We study this site exposure mechanism using a simple physical model, and examine its equilibrium properties as well as the dynamics. In particular, we characterize the effective interaction between two DNA-binding proteins, which is generated by the presence of the histones. This interaction is relevant for the molecular processes involved in transcription regulation.

[1] J. Widom, Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics 34, 269 (2001)