Elastic Model for Dinucleosome Structure and Energy

The equilibrium structure of a Dinucleosome is studied using an elastic model that takes into account the force and torque balance conditions. Using the proper boundary conditions, it is found that the conformational energy of the problem does not depend on the length of the linker DNA. In addition it is shown that the two histone octamers are almost perpendicular to each other and the linker DNA in short lengths is almost straight. These findings could shed some light on the role of DNA elasticity in the chromatin structure.