Statistical Physics in Biology

DNA (Melting)

1. Macroscopic properties of DNA; packaging into chromatin (eukaryotes)
2. Pray, L. Discovery of DNA Structure and Function: Watson and Crick. Nature Education 1, no. 1 (2008).
   Microscopic structure of DNA; the four nucleotides; binding energies
3. Denaturation, hybridization (similarity); renaturation (zippering)
4. (UV absorption) Melting curves for medium and long chains; general features and theoretical issues
5. The pair-stacking model; (Poland, D., and H. A. Scheraga. Theory of Helix-Coil Transitions in Biopolymers. Academic Press, 1970.)
6. Theoretical analysis of homopolymer denaturation (presentation by David Mukamel at ITP)

• Meltsim is a package to calculate melting temperature of specified DNA sequences.

(Detailed Lecture Notes (PDF))