The similarity in the thermodynamic properties of two completely different theoretical models for the helix-coil transition is examined critically. The first model is an all-atomic representation for a poly-alanine chain, while the second model is a minimal helix-forming model that contains no system specifics. Key characteristics of the helix-coil transition, in particular, the effective critical exponents of these two models agree with each other, within a finite-size scaling analysis.
@article{arxiv.physics/0003017,
title = {Is there a universality of the helix-coil transition in protein models?},
author = {Josh P. Kemp and Ulrich H. E. Hansmann and Zheng Y. Chen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0003017},
year = {2009}
}