Related papers: Non-random coil behavior as a consequence of exten…
Structural defects are ubiquitous in condensed matter, and not always a nuisance. For example, they underlie phenomena such as Anderson localization and hyperuniformity, and they are now being exploited to engineer novel materials. Here, we…
The relevance of various residue positions for the stability and the folding characteristics of the prion protein are investigated by using molecular dynamics simulations of models exploiting the topology of the native state. Highly…
A microscopic theory of the free energy barriers and folding routes for minimally frustrated proteins is presented, greatly expanding on the presentation of the variational approach outlined previously [J. J. Portman, S. Takada, P. G.…
We analyze a model statistical description of the polypeptide chain helix-coil transition, where we take into account the specificity of its primary sequence, as quantified by the phase space volume ratio of the number of all accessible…
By observing trends in the folding kinetics of experimental 2-state proteins at their transition midpoints, and by observing trends in the barrier heights of numerous simulations of coarse grained, C-alpha model, Go proteins, we show that…
Proteins are minimally frustrated polymers. However, for realistic protein models non-native interactions must be taken into account. In this paper we analyze the effect of non-native interactions on the folding rate and on the folding free…
We explore the possibility for the native state of a protein being inherently a multi-conformation state in an ab initio coarse-grained model. Based on the Wang-Landau algorithm, the complete free energy landscape for the designed sequence…
Nanoindentation techniques recently developed to measure the mechanical response of crystals under external loading conditions reveal new phenomena upon decreasing sample size below the microscale. At small length scales, material…
Many small proteins fold via a first-order "all-or-none" transition directly from an expanded coil to a compact native state. Here we study an analogous direct freezing transition from an expanded coil to a compact crystallite for a simple…
Average block entanglement in the 1D XX-model with uncorrelated random couplings is known to grow as the logarithm of the block size, in similarity to conformal systems. In this work we study random spin chains whose couplings present long…
It has recently been demonstrated that many biological networks exhibit a scale-free topology where the probability of observing a node with a certain number of edges (k) follows a power law: i.e. p(k) ~ k^-g. This observation has been…
Single domain proteins are thought to be tightly packed. The introduction of voids by mutations is often regarded as destabilizing. In this study we show that packing density for single domain proteins decreases with chain length. We find…
These lectures will address two questions. Is there a simple variational principle underlying the existence of secondary motifs in the native state of proteins? Is there a general approach which can qualitatively capture the salient…
Two-state cooperativity is an important characteristic in protein folding. It is defined by a depletion of states lying energetically between folded and unfolded conformations. While there are different ways to test for two-state…
A fascinating and open question challenging biochemistry, physics and even geometry is the presence of highly regular motifs such as alpha-helices in the folded state of biopolymers and proteins. Stimulating explanations ranging from…
Protein folding cooperativity is defined by the nature of the finite-size thermodynamic transition exhibited upon folding: two-state transitions show a free energy barrier between the folded and unfolded ensembles, while downhill folding is…
In this paper, we introduce an approach to the protein folding problem from the point of view of statistical physics. Protein folding is a stochastic process by which a polypeptide folds into its characteristic and functional 3D structure…
Single-particle and coincidence distributions of photons are analyzed for the noncollinear frequency-degenerate type-I regime of Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion. Noncollinearity itself is shown to provide a new mechanism of strong…
Spin coating is an out-of-equilibrium technique for producing polymer films and colloidal crystals quickly and reproducibly. In this review, we present an overview of theoretical and experimental studies of the spin coating of colloidal…
The ability to computationally generate novel yet physically foldable protein structures could lead to new biological discoveries and new treatments targeting yet incurable diseases. Despite recent advances in protein structure prediction,…