Topology and Geometry of Biopolymers

Contains the proceedings of the AMS Special Session on Topology of Biopolymers, held April 2018, at Northeastern University. The papers cover recent results on the topology and geometry of DNA and protein knotting using techniques from knot theory, spatial graph theory, differential geometry, molecular simulations, and laboratory experimentation.

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This book contains the proceedings of the AMS Special Session on Topology of Biopolymers, held from April 21-22, 2018, at Northeastern University, Boston, MA. The papers cover recent results on the topology and geometry of DNA and protein knotting using techniques from knot theory, spatial graph theory, differential geometry, molecular simulations, and laboratory experimentation. They include current work on the following topics: the density and supercoiling of DNA minicircles; the dependence of DNA geometry on its amino acid sequence; random models of DNA knotting; topological models of DNA replication and recombination; theories of how and why proteins knot; topological and geometric approaches to identifying entanglements in proteins; and topological and geometric techniques to predict protein folding rates.

All of the articles are written as surveys intended for a broad interdisciplinary audience with a minimum of prerequisites. In addition to being a useful reference for experts, this book also provides an excellent introduction to the fast-moving field of topology and geometry of biopolymers.