Decomposition of the linking number of a closed ribbon: A problem from molecular biology
- 1 August 1978
- journal article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 75 (8), 3557-3561
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.75.8.3557
Abstract
A closed duplex DNA molecule relaxed and containing nucleosomes has a different linking number from the same molecule relaxed and without nucleosomes. What does this say about the structure of the nucleosome? A mathematical study of this question is made, representing the DNA molecule by a ribbon. It is shown that the linking number of a closed ribbon can be decomposed into the linking number of a reference ribbon plus a sum of locally determined "linking differences."Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- Linking numbers and nucleosomes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1976
- Statistical mechanics and topology of polymer chainsNature, 1975
- The Writhing Number of a Space CurveProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1971