W2D5

Today I spent more time looking into papers on osmotic pressure. The first one I read was by Hansen et al, and it described a new way of looking at ions around DNA called the cell model formulation. This model is more accurate for determining osmotic pressure at low salt concentrations. It says that this "cell" acts as a neutralization volume for the counterions, and the electric field vanishes at the cell wall. Within the cell, the ions follow the PB equation. I also read another paper by Evilevitch (EVIL!) about DNA ejection from viruses. This paper suggested that PEG can be used to prevent the ejection of DNA from viruses. The use of smaller osmotic pressure changing molecules such as Glycol does not prevent the ejection of the DNA.