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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Preparation of DNA-crosslinked Polyacrylamide Hydrogels
Published on: August 27, 2014
Conformational Entropy of an Ideal Cross-Linking Polymer Chain
Oleg K Vorov1, Dennis R Livesay, Donald J Jacobs
1Department of Physics and Optical Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA.
Abstract:
We present a novel analytical method to calculate conformational entropy of ideal cross-linking polymers from the configuration integral by employing a Mayer series expansion. Mayer-functions describing chemical bonds within the chain and for cross-links are sharply peaked over the temperature range of interest, and, are well approximated as statistically weighted Dirac delta-functions that enforce distance constraints. All geometrical deformations consistent with a set of distance constraints are integrated over. Exact results for a contiguous series of connected loops are employed to substantiate the validity of a previous phenomenological distance constraint model that describes protein thermodynamics successfully based on network rigidity.
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