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Updated: Oct 3, 2026

DNA Tension Probes to Map the Transient Piconewton Receptor Forces by Immune Cells
Published on: March 20, 2021
Temperature dependence of unbinding forces between complementary DNA strands
Irina Schumakovitch1, Wilfried Grange, Torsten Strunz
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, National Center of Competence in Research on Nanoscale Science, University of Basel, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Force probe techniques such as atomic force microscopy can directly measure the force required to rupture single biological ligand receptor bonds. Such forces are related to the energy landscape of these weak, noncovalent biological interactions. We report unbinding force measurements between complementary strands of DNA as a function of temperature. Our measurements emphasize the entropic contributions to the energy landscape of the bond.
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