Studies on the motion of a two bead system in optical tweezers coupled by DNA

Saha, Tanumoy (2015) Studies on the motion of a two bead system in optical tweezers coupled by DNA. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata.

PDF (MS dissertation of Tanumoy Saha (10MS08)) 10MS08_Tanumoy_Saha.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (11MB)

Abstract

Probing Single molecule like DNA and RNA using tweezers has become a new field of research. Using optical tweezers we can study reaction kinetics of single RNA Protein interactions. With optical tweezers, one can also measure the forces generated by single motor molecules such as kinesin and myosin, in the pico to femto-Newton range and, for the first time, spatially resolve their detailed stepping motion. Our aim was to develop such a system capable of probing Riboswitch fluctuation and so as a preliminary step we probed a single molecule sDNA using a dumbbell potential optical trap. We had also done the force calibration of the sDNA using a fast new technique and tried to measure its persistence length, a parameter which depends on environmental conditions like temperature, pH of the medium. We then compared the data with the predicted results to know about the consistency and validity of our technique and setup.

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