Polymers are essential to biology because they can have enough stable degrees of freedom to store the molecular code of heredity and to express the sequences needed to manufacture new molecules. Through these they perform or control virtually every function in life. Although some biopolymers are created and spend their entire career in the relatively large free space inside cells or organelles, many biopolymers must migrate through a narrow passageway to get to their targeted destination. This suggests the questions: How does confining a polymer affect its behavior and function? What does that tell us about the interactions between the monomers that comprise the polymer and the molecules that confine it? Can we design and build devices that mimic the functions of these nanoscale systems? The NATO Advanced Research Workshop brought together for four days in Bikal, Hungary over forty experts in experimental and theoretical biophysics, molecular biology, biophysical chemistry, and biochemistry interested in these questions. Their papers collected in this book provide insight on biological processes involving confinement and form a basis for new biotechnological applications using polymers. In his paper Edmund DiMarzio asks: What is so special about polymers? Why are polymers so prevalent in living things? The chemist says the reason is that a protein made of N amino acids can have any of 20 different kinds at each position along the chain, resulting in 20 N different polymers, and that the complexity of life lies in this variety.

Klappentext
The primary goal of this book is to explore the physical properties of polymers in confined spaces at the nanometer scale, with a particular emphasis on determining the mechanisms by which polymers are transported through narrow interstices. A variety of pore structures that polymers can penetrate have recently been discovered, and it is now possible to probe the dynamics of the interactions between polymers and the penetrating molecules.The experimental and theoretical advances discussed include: - Mechanical properties of single molecules; - Detection & characterization of single polymers transported through narrow ion channels;- Direct measurement of the energetics and dynamics of polymer transport through a pore;- Statistical mechanical theories for single polymer transport through a narrow pore; - Novel polymer separations techniques not based on cross-linked gels; - Physics of polymer-protein interactions. The book also explores potential scientific and technological applications that can exploit these systems, with the aim of stimulating new research in this highly multidisciplinary field.

Inhalt
Profound implications for biophysics of the polymer threading a membrane transition.- Phage DNA transport across membranes.- Translocation of macromolecules across membranes and through aqueous channels: Translocation across membranes.- Protein translocation across the outer membrane of mitochondria: Structure and function of the TOM complex of Neurospora crassa.- Protein translocation channels in mitochondria: TIM & TOM channels.- Sizing channels with neutral polymers.- Dynamic partitioning of neutral polymers into a single ion channel.- Branched polymers inside nanoscale pores.- Physics of DNA threading through a nanometer pore and applications to simultaneous multianalyte sensing.- Mechanism of ionic current blockades during polymer transport through pores of nanometer dimensions.- Using nanopores to discriminate between single molecules of DNA.- Use of a nanoscale pore to read short segments within single polynucleotide molecules.- Polymer dynamics in microporous media.- Entropic barrier theory of polymer translocation.- Polymer translocation through a complicated pore.- The polymer barrier crossing problem.- Brownian ratchets and their application to biological transport processes and macromolecular separation.- Composition and structural dynamics of vertebrate striated muscle thick filaments: Role of myosin-associated proteins.- Force-driven folding and unfolding transitions in single Titin molecules: Single polymer strand manipulation.- Dynamics of actin filaments in motility assays: A microscopic model and its numerical simulation.- Conformation-dependent sequence design of copolymers: Example of bio-evolution mimetics approach.- Single molecule nucleic acid analysis by fluorescence flow cytometry.- Fluorescence energy transfer reagents for DNA sequencingand analysis: High-throughput fluorescent DNA sequencing.