title: Elastic Properties of Nucleic Acids by Single-Molecule Force Spectroscopy.
abstract: We review the current knowledge on the use of single-molecule force spectroscopy techniques to extrapolate the elastic properties of nucleic acids. We emphasize the lesser-known elastic properties of single-stranded DNA. We discuss the importance of accurately determining the elastic response in pulling experiments, and we review the simplest models used to rationalize the experimental data as well as the experimental approaches used to pull single-stranded DNA. Applications used to investigate DNA conformational transitions and secondary structure formation are also highlighted. Finally, we provide an overview of the effects of salt and temperature and briefly discuss the effects of contour length and sequence dependence.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Física Fonamental, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; email: fritort@gmail.com.|CIBER-BBN de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Camunas-Soler
authors.affiliation: Departament de Física Fonamental, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; email: fritort@gmail.com.|CIBER-BBN de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ribezzi-Crivellari
authors.affiliation: Departament de Física Fonamental, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; email: fritort@gmail.com.|CIBER-BBN de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ritort
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded / Q000737:chemistry; D004548:Elasticity; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D009696:Nucleic Acids / Q000737:chemistry*; D000072760:Single Molecule Imaging
chemical_list: D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded; D009696:Nucleic Acids; D004247:DNA
keywords: DNA elasticity; force spectroscopy; nucleic acids; polymer biophysics; single-molecule experiments