Skip to content

A twist in chiral interaction between biological helices

A. A. Kornyshev, S. Leikin

physics.bio-pharXiv:physics/9911063

Abstract

Using an exact solution for the pair interaction potential, we show that long, rigid, chiral molecules with helical surface charge patterns have a preferential interaxial angle ~((RH)1/2)/L, where L is the length of the molecules, R is the closest distance between their axes, and H is the helical pitch. Estimates based on this formula suggest a solution for the puzzle of small interaxial angles in a-helix bundles and in cholesteric phases of DNA.

Create a lesson