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Transition path times for nucleic acid folding determined from energy-landscape analysis of single-molecule trajectories

From National Research Council Canada

DOIResolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.068102
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Affiliation
  1. National Research Council of Canada. National Institute for Nanotechnology
FormatText, Article
SubjectConfigurational energy; Critical events; Diffusion constant; DNA hairpin; Energy landscape; Folding reactions; Optical trap; Pseudo-knots; Riboswitches; RNA folding; Single-molecule; Structural transitions; Time spent; Transition paths; Transition time; Biopolymers; RNA; Molecules
Abstract
The duration of structural transitions in biopolymers is only a fraction of the time spent searching diffusively over the configurational energy landscape. We found the transition time, τ TP, and the diffusion constant, D, for DNA and RNA folding using energy landscapes obtained from single-molecule trajectories under tension in optical traps. DNA hairpins, RNA pseudoknots, and a riboswitch all had τ TP∼10μs and D∼10 -13 -14m2/s, despite widely differing unfolding rates. These results show how energy-landscape analysis can be harnessed to characterize brief but critical events during folding reactions. © 2012 American Physical Society.
Publication date
In
  • Physical Review Letters 109, no. 6, 68102 (2012).
LanguageEnglish
Peer reviewedYes
NPARC number21269448
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Record identifierdcd92523-10e2-49c0-9036-af8a38273910
Record created2013-12-12
Record modified2020-04-21
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