Elastic correlations in nucleosomal DNA structure

The structure of DNA in the nucleosome core particle is studied using an elastic model that incorporates anisotropy in the bending energetics and twist-bend coupling. Using the experimentally determined structure of nucleosomal DNA [T.J. Richmond and C.A. Davey, Nature (London)NATUAS0028-0836 423, 145 (2003)10.1038/nature01595], it is shown that elastic correlations exist between twist, roll, tilt, and stretching of DNA, as well as the distance between phosphate groups. The twist-bend coupling term is shown to be able to capture these correlations to a large extent, and a fit to the experimental data yields a new estimate of G=25nm for the value of the twist-bend coupling constant. © 2005 The American Physical Society