Non-Ergodic Transport and Conformational Dynamics of DNA in Biomimetic Cytoskeleton Networks
Date:
Excerpt of abstract: Macromolecular crowding is an increasingly relevant biophysical phenomenon affecting gene expression, drug delivery, protein function, and intracellular transport. Of particular interest is the influence that cytoskeletal filaments have on the transport and conformational dynamics of large DNA molecules--two properties critical for processes such as transfection, viral infection, and gene therapy. Here, we use single-molecule conformational tracking (SMCT) to elucidate the transport properties and conformational dynamics of linear and relaxed circular (ring) DNA in in vitro composite networks of actin and microtubules with variable types of crosslinking. Specifically, we investigate the impact of crosslinking actin to actin, microtubules to microtubules, and actin to microtubules. While both linear and ring DNA undergo anomalous subdiffusion in all networks, the transport properties are heavily influenced by DNA topology (linear vs ring).