COMBINED LATTICE-BOLTZMANN AND MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS SIMULATION OF BIOPOLYMER TRANSLOCATION THROUGH AN ARTIFICIAL NANO-PORE

나노 세공을 지나는 생체고분자 운동에 대한 격자-볼츠만과 분자동역학에 의한 수치해석

  • Published : 2009.11.27

Abstract

Translocation of biopolymers such as DNA and RNA through a nano-pore is an important process in biotechnology applications. The translocation process of a biopolymer through an artificial nano-pore in the presence of a fluid solvent is simulated. The polymer motion is simulated by Langevin molecular dynamics (MD) techniques while the solvent dynamics are taken into account by lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM). The hydrodynamic interactions are considered explicitly by coupling the polymer and solvent through the frictional and the random forces. From simulation results we found that the hydrodynamic interactions between polymer and solvent speed-up the translocation process. The translocation time ${\tao}_T$ scales with the chain length N as ${{\tau}_T}^{\propto}N^{\alpha}$. The value of scaling exponents($\alpha$) obtained from our simulations are $1.29{\pm}0.03$ and $1.41{\pm}0.03$, with and without hydrodynamic interactions, respectively. Our simulation results are in good agreement with the experimentally observed value of $\alpha$, which is equal to $1.27{\pm}0.03$, particularly when hydrodynamic interaction effects are taken into account.

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