title: Experimental evidence of weak excluded volume effects for nanochannel confined DNA.
abstract: We present experimental demonstration that weak excluded volume effects arise in DNA nanochannel confinement. In particular, by performing measurements of the variance in chain extension as a function of nanochannel dimension for effective channel size ranging from 305 nm to 453 nm, we show that the scaling of the variance in extension with channel size rejects the de Gennes scalingδ2X~D1/3in favor ofδ2X~D0using uncertainty at the 95% confidence level. We also show how simulations and confinement spectroscopy can be combined to reduce molecular weight dispersity effects arising from shearing, photocleavage, and nonuniform staining of DNA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, 421 Washington Ave SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Damini
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, 421 Washington Ave SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Jeremy J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, 421 Washington Ave SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Abhiram
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Muralidhar
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, McGill University, 3600 rue University, Montreal QC H3A 2T8, Canada.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mahshid
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, McGill University, 3600 rue University, Montreal QC H3A 2T8, Canada.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Reisner
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, 421 Washington Ave SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Kevin D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Dorfman