Single monomer dynamics in DNA polymers

Abstract

Recently the first observation of the kinetics of individual polymer monomers using the fluorescence correlation technique has been reported [R. Shusterman et al.: Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 (2004) 048303]. We propose the interpretation of these and similar experiments coming from the "joint" Rouse-Zimm theory that contains the Rouse and Zimm models as limiting cases. Optimizing the theory to the experimental data, the phenomenological parameters for the statistical-mechanical description of the universal behavior of double and single stranded DNA and the dominant types of their dynamics have been determined.