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Time scale of entropic segregation of flexible polymers in confinement: Implications for chromosome segregation in filamentous bacteria

Axel Arnold*

Suckjoon Jun†

  • FOM-Institute AMOLF, Kruislaan 407, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  • Faculté de Médecine, INSERM Site Necker, U571, 156 rue de Vaugirard, 75015 Paris, France

  • *arnold@amolf.nl
  • †Present address: FAS Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
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Phys. Rev. E 76, 031901 – Published 5 September, 2007

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.76.031901

Abstract

We report molecular dynamics simulations of the segregation of two overlapping chains in cylindrical confinement. We find that the entropic repulsion between chains can be sufficiently strong to cause segregation on a time scale that is short compared to the one for diffusion. This result implies that entropic driving forces are sufficiently strong to cause rapid bacterial chromosome segregation.

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Phys. Rev. E 76, 031901– Published 5 September, 2007
  • Received 24 April 2007

© 2007 American Physical Society

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