Effective nonadditive pair potential for lock-and-key interacting particles: The role of the limited valence.
Theoretical studies of self-assembly processes and condensed phases in colloidal systems are often based on effective interparticle potentials. Here we show that developing an effective potential for particles interacting with a limited number of "lock-and-key" selective bonds (due to the specificity of biomolecular interactions) requires-in addition to the nonsphericity of the potential-a (many body) constraint that prevents multiple bonding on the same site. We show the importance of retaining both valence and bond selectivity by developing, as a case study, a simple effective potential describing the interaction between colloidal particles coated by four single-strand DNA chains.
Dipartimento di Fisica and INFM-CNR-SOFT, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Piazzale A. Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy.
Julio
J
Largo
Piero
P
Tartaglia
Francesco
F
Sciortino