Simple Quantitative Model for the Reversible Association of DNA Coated Colloids

Condensed Matter journal club

Simple Quantitative Model for the Reversible Association of DNA Coated Colloids

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 6th February 2009
  • Speaker: Eduardo Sanz (Formerly School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Abstract

We investigate the reversible association of micrometer-sized colloids coated with complementary single-stranded DNA ''sticky ends'' as a function of the temperature and the sticky end coverage. We find that even a qualitative description of the dissociation transition curves requires the inclusion of an entropic cost. We develop a simple general model for this cost in terms of the configurational entropy loss due to binding and confinement of the tethered DNA between neighboring particles.With this easy-to-use model, we demonstrate for different kinds of DNA constructs quantitative control over the dissociation temperature and the sharpness of the dissociation curve, both essential properties for complex selfassembly processes.
Phys. Rev. Lett 102 048301 (2009)

Authors

Rémi Dreyfus, M.E. Leunissen, R. Sha, A.V. Tkachenko, N.C. Seeman, D.J. Pine, and P.M. Chaikin

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