Kinetic mechanisms of crumpled globule formation

Abstract: Homopolymer chain with beads forming pairwise reversible bonds is a well-known model in polymer physics. We studied kinetics of homopolymer chain collapse, which was induced by pairwise reversible bonds formation. We compared kinetic mechanism of this coil-globule transition with the mechanism of collapse in a poor solvent. We discovered, that coil-globule transition occurs sufficiently more homogeneously on different scales, if collapse is induced by pairwise reversible bonds formation. This effect leads to formation of transient structures, which are not similar to the classical pearl-necklace conformations formed during collapse in a poor solvent. However, both types of collapse lead to formation of a metastable state of crumpled globule, which is one of the well-known models of interphase chromatin structure in different organisms. Moreover, we found out that stability and dynamics of this state can be controlled by fraction of reversible bonds and bond lifetime.