Ideal-Chain Collapse in Biopolymers

Abstract

A conceptual difficulty in the Hooke's-law description of ideal Gaussian polymer-chain elasticity is sometimes apparent in analyses of experimental data or in physical models designed to simulate the behavior of biopolymers. The problem, the tendency of a chain to collapse in the absence of external forces, is examined in the following examples: DNA-stretching experiments, gel electrophoresis, and protein folding. We demonstrate that the application of a statistical-mechanically derived repulsive force, acting between the chain ends, whose magnitude is proportional to the absolute temperature and inversely proportional to the scalar end separation removes this difficulty.