The translocation of a chain molecule (e.g., a protein) through a membrane often involves a "biased diffusion", or "ratcheting", arising from the binding of particles to the chain. In this talk I present several generalizations of this idea which are motivated by the particular example of DNA genomes being injected by bacterial viruses ("phage") into host cells. Theoretical estimates of the forces acting on the DNA, including those due to confinement of the genome in the phage capsid, are discussed in the context of recent experiments by our group on the control and measurement of ejection forces in bacterial viruses.
[Joint work with R. Zandi, D. Reguera J. Rudnick, M. Inamdar, P. Grayson, R. Phillips, A. Evilevitch, and C. M. Knobler]
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