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Researchers, in a new study, have explained a mechanism by which two knots on a DNA strand can interchange their positions. They showed the same with the help of computer simulations. 

For this, one of the knots grows in size while the other diffuses along the contour of the former. Since there is only a small free energy barrier to swap, a significant number of crossing events have been observed in molecular dynamics simulations, i.e., there is a high probability of such interchange of positions, explained the press release. 

"We assume that this swapping of positions on a DNA strand may also happen in living organisms," said Dr. Peter Virnau of the JGU Institute of Physics, in the press release, who performed the computer simulation together with his colleagues Benjamin Trefz and Jonathan Siebert. 

According to researchers the mechanism may play an important role in future technologies such as nanopore sequencing in which long DNA strands are sequenced by being pulled through pores. 

Long DNA strands of more than 100,000 base pairs have an increasing chance of knots, which is relevant for sequencing, the press release added.

The study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.