PHYSICAL MATHEMATICS SEMINAR TITLE: A LENGTH-DYNAMIC TONKS GAS THEORY OF HISTONE ISOTHERMS SPEAKER: TOM CHOU DEPARTMENT OF BIOMATHEMATICS AND INSTITUTE FOR PURE AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ABSTRACT: We find exact solutions to a new one-dimensional (1D) interacting particle theory and apply the results to the adsorption and wrapping of polymers (such as DNA) around protein particles (such as histones). Each adsorbed protein is represented by a Tonks gas particle. The length of each particle is a degree of freedom that represents the degree of DNA wrapping around each histone. Thermodynamic quantities are computed as functions of wrapping energy, adsorbed histone density, and bulk histone concentrations (or chemical potential). Histone density is found to undergo a two-stage adsorption process as a function of chemical potential; while histone-histone correlation functions exhibit two scale behavior. The mean coverage by high affinity proteins exhibits a maximum in the chemical potential, although coverage fluctuations are also concurrently maximal. Binding experiments are proposed and discussed. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2002 2:30 pm Building 2, Room 338 Refreshments will be served at 3:30 PM in Room 2-349 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Mathematics Cambridge, MA 02139