Related papers: Unstructured intermediate states in single protein…
One of the most intriguing results of single molecule experiments on proteins and nucleic acids is the discovery of functional heterogeneity: the observation that complex cellular machines exhibit multiple, biologically active…
Deviations from linearity in the dependence of the logarithm of protein unfolding rates, $\log k_u(f)$, as a function of mechanical force, $f$, measurable in single molecule experiments, can arise for many reasons. In particular, upward…
Triangular lattice models for pattern formation by hard-core soft-shell particles at interfaces are introduced and studied in order to determine the effect of the shell thickness and structure. In model I, we consider particles with…
Single molecule force spectroscopy methods can be used to generate folding trajectories of biopolymers from arbitrary regions of the folding landscape. We illustrate the complexity of the folding kinetics and generic aspects of the collapse…
Short-range interactions and long-range contacts drive the 3D folding of structured proteins. The proteins' structure has a direct impact on their biological function. However, nearly 40% of the eukaryotes proteome is composed of…
A simple lattice model, recently introduced as a generalization of the Wako--Sait\^o model of protein folding, is used to investigate the properties of widely studied molecules under external forces. The equilibrium properties of the model…
The nanomechanical response of a folded single protein, the natural nanomachine responsible for myriad biological processes, provides insight into its function. The conformational flexibility of a folded state, characterized by its…
In order to understand the nuclei which develop during the course of protein folding and unfolding, we examine phase segregation of a single heteropolymer chain which occurs in equilibrium. These segregated conformations are characterized…
We consider six different secondary structures of proteins and construct two types of Go-type off-lattice models: with the steric constraints and without. The basic aminoacid-aminoacid potential is Lennard Jones for the native contacts and…
Many pairwise additive force fields are in active use for intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and regions (IDRs), some of which modify energetic terms to improve description of IDPs/IDRs, but are largely in disagreement with solution…
We study the conformation and dynamics of a single polymer chain that is pulled by a constant force applied at its one end with the other end free. Such a situation is relevant to the growing technology of manipulating individual…
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…
The folding of a protein towards its native state is a rather complicated process. However there are empirical evidences that the folding time correlates with the contact order, a simple measure of the spatial organisation of the native…
We consider multi-chain protein native structures and propose a criterion that determines whether two chains in the system are entangled or not. The criterion is based on the behavior observed by pulling at both temini of each chain…
Chain molecules play important roles in industry and in living cells. Our focus here is on distinct ways of modeling the stiffness inherent in a chain molecule. We consider three types of stiffnesses -- one yielding an energy penalty for…
Heterogeneity in biological molecules, resulting in molecule-to-molecule variations in their dynamics and function, is an emerging theme. To elucidate the consequences of heterogeneous behavior at the single molecule level, we propose an…
The dynamics of folding of proteins is studied by means of a phenomenological master equation. The energy distribution is taken as a truncated exponential for the misfolded states plus a native state sitting below the continuum. The…
We report on atomistic simulation of the folding of a natively-knotted protein, MJ0366, based on a realistic force field. To the best of our knowledge this is the first reported effort where a realistic force field is used to investigate…
Several physical mechanisms have been proposed to explain allostery in proteins. They differ by the number of internal states that they assume a protein to occupy, leaving open the question of what controls the emergence of these distinct…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study structure formation in simple model polymer chains that are subject to excluded volume and torsional interactions. The changing conformations exhibited by chains of different lengths under…