Decomposition of the linking number of a closed ribbon: A problem from molecular biology.
A closed duplex DNA molecule relaxed and containing nucleosomes has a different linking number from the same molecule relaxed and without nucleosomes. What does this say about the structure of the nucleosome? A mathematical study of this question is made, representing the DNA molecule by a ribbon. It is shown that the linking number of a closed ribbon can be decomposed into the linking number of a reference ribbon plus a sum of locally determined "linking differences."
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California Institute of Technology, Sloan 253-37, Pasadena, California 91125.