Monte Carlo simulation of chromatin fibre confined in a nanochannel.

We study 30-nm chromatin fibre restricted in a nanofluidic channel with square cross-section using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The chromatin fibre is modelled as cylinders-on-a-string with six alterable angles. The effects of the channel width and E_max on the configuration of the chromatin fibre are investigated in detail. Our results show that the channel width has a considerable influence on conformational characteristics of the chain. It is found that at large E_max, the chromatin fibre undergoes a conformational transition from stretched state to coiled state with increasing the channel width. Additionally, the influence of the channel width is lowered with enhancing E_max. At small values of the channel width, the chains for different E_max exhibit a similar structure, namely, a stretched conformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]