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Updated: Jul 22, 2025

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality
Published on: March 11, 2022
Decoding chirality in circuit topology of a self entangled chain through braiding
Jonas Berx1, Alireza Mashaghi1
1Medical Systems Biophysics and Bioengineering, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, Faculty of Science, Leiden University, 2333CC Leiden, The Netherlands. alireza.mashaghi@lacdr.leidenuniv.nl.
Abstract:
Circuit topology employs fundamental units of entanglement, known as soft contacts, for constructing knots from the bottom up, utilizing circuit topology relations, namely parallel, series, cross, and concerted relations. In this article, we further develop this approach to facilitate the analysis of chirality, which is a significant quantity in polymer chemistry. To achieve this, we translate the circuit topology approach to knot engineering into a braid-theoretic framework. This enables us to calculate the Jones polynomial for all possible binary combinations of contacts in cross or concerted relations and to show that, for series and parallel relations, the polynomial factorises. Our results demonstrate that the Jones polynomial provides a powerful tool for analysing the chirality of molecular knots constructed using circuit topology. The framework presented here can be used to design and engineer a wide range of entangled chain with desired chiral properties, with potential applications in fields such as materials science and nanotechnology.
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