Shape anisotropy of a single random-walk polymer
- 12 September 2000
- journal article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 97 (20) , 10792-10795
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.190320097
Abstract
Random walks have been used to describe a wide variety of systems ranging from cell colonies to polymers. Sixty-five years ago, Kuhn [Kuhn, W. (1934) Kolloid-Z. 68, 2-11] made the prediction, backed later by computer simulations, that the overall shape of a random-walk polymer is aspherical, yet no experimental work has directly tested Kuhn's general idea and subsequent computer simulations. By using fluorescence microscopy, we monitored the conformation of individual, long, random-walk polymers (fluorescently labeled DNA molecules) at equilibrium. We found that a polymer most frequently adopts highly extended, nonfractal structures with a strongly anisotropic shape. The ensemble-average ratio of the lengths of the long and short axes of the best-fit ellipse of the polymer was much larger than unity.Keywords
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