Invited Speaker
Rob Scharein
Modeling type II topoisomerase unknotting action by random strand passage on cubic lattice knots
Type II topoisomerases are known to be efficient at unknotting knotted DNA using strand-passages. As a first step toward understanding the biology of these events, we use the BFACF algorithm to generate ensembles of random knots on the simple cubic lattice. Strand passage is performed on these knots using several methods. The resulting knot distributions provide transition probabilities between various knot types that can be used to track the progressive unknotting of a given knot type. We also provide data on the steady state probabilities for each knot type.
This is joint work with Mariel Vazquez and Javier Arsuaga.