Figure 4
Statistics and dynamics of TFAM oligomerization.
(a) Distribution of oligomer size for three different values of fractional coverage of DNA by TFAM, c. Red line corresponds to c = 0.1, blue to c = 0.3 and green to c = 0.5. The number of large flexible hinges in each oligomer is n − 1. (b) Log-Log plot of the mean square displacement (MSD) as a function of time for the same values of coverage as in a. The vertical lines define three areas of different diffusivity. The linear behavior at short (I) and long times (III) is due to protein oligomerization and crowding effects, respectively37. At intermediate times (II), transient arrested states (caging) result in sub-diffusive behavior (α < 1). Results for both a and b are obtained by MC simulations of protein dynamics in a 3000 bp long DNA.
