Z.-M. Lou’s scientific contributions

The external environment affects the structural form of biological system. Many biological systems are surrounded by cell solutions, such as DNA and bacteria. The solution will offer a viscous resistance as the biological system moves in the viscous fluid. How does the viscous resistance affect the stability of biological system and what mode will be selected after instability? In this paper, we establish a super-long elastic rod model which contains the viscous resistance to model this phenomenon. The stability and instability of the super-long elastic rod in the viscous fluid are studied. The dynamic equations of motion of the super-long elastic rod in viscous fluid are given based on the Kirchhoff dynamic analogy. Then a coordinate basis vector perturbation scheme is reviewed. According to the new perturbation method, we obtain the first order perturbation representation of super-long elastic rod dynamic equation in the viscous fluid, which is a group of the second order linear partial differential equations. The stability of the super-long elastic rod can be determined by analyzing the solutions of the second order linear partial differential equations. The results are applied to a twisted planar DNA ring. The stability criterion of the twisted planar DNA ring and its critical region are obtained. The results show that the viscous resistance has no effect on the stability of super-long elastic rod dynamics, but affects its instability. The mode selection and the influence of the viscous resistance on the instability of DNA ring are discussed. The amplitude of the elastic loop becomes smaller under the influence of the viscous resistance, and a bifurcation occurs. The mode number of instability of DNA loop becomes bigger with the increase of viscous resistance.