Rational tangle surgery and Xer recombination on catenanes (Q441066)

There are several biological experiments where through recombination the knot type of circular DNA is changed. Here the authors concentrate on experiments where through a recombinase called Xer a \((2,2k)\)-torus link was changed to a knot with \(2k+1\) crossings. The mathematical model used here is an extension of the tangle model introduced by \textit{C. Ernst} and \textit{D. W. Sumners} [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 108, No. 3, 489--515 (1990; Zbl 0727.57005)]. The action of recombinase converting one knot into another is modelled either by tangle surgery or in the specific case here by band surgery. Band surgery is a special case of tangle surgery, namely replacing the \(0\)-tangle by a \((1/w)\)-tangle for some integer \(w\). In this paper band surgeries on the family of 2-bridge knots given by \(N(\frac{4mn-1}{2m})\) (where \(m, n\) are integers) yielding a \((2,2k)\)-torus link are characterized. The \(N(\frac{4mn-1}{2m})\) family of 2-bridge knots includes all the twist knots which frequently occur in biological reactions. The methods make use of earlier work by some of the authors on analysis of DNA recombination experiments [\textit{I. K. Darcy}, J. Knot Theory Ramifications 14, No. 8, 993--1005 (2005; Zbl 1090.57004)] and [\textit{M. Hirasawa} and \textit{K. Shimokawa}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 128, No. 11, 3445--3451 (2000; Zbl 0962.57011)].