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DNA spontaneously wrapping around a histone core prefers negative supercoiling: A Brownian dynamics study

Fig 2

Generation of initial supercoiled DNA and representative snapshots of DNA winding around a histone core.

(Left) The initial DNA supercoils were introduced by rotating the base vectors and about attached to the end DNA segment. A single histone core interacts with a positively supercoiled DNA (ΔLk = 3) at length of 1000 bp (100 segments) under tension f = 0 . 3pN. A complete simulation trajectory includes the sequential steps: histone core searching the DNA chain(a), the histone touching the DNA(b), DNA winding around histone (c) and finally completing the nucleosome wrapping (d and e). The first passage time (τ) of nucleosome-wrapping is defined by the time interval between (b) and (d).

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012362.g002