Related papers: Influence of pH and sequence in peptide aggregatio…
The need to understand the assembly kinetics of fibril formation has become urgent because of the realization that soluble oligomers of amyloidogenic peptides may be even more neurotoxic than the end product, namely, the amyloid fibrils. In…
The design of hybrid peptide-solid interfaces for nanotechnological applications such as biomolecular nanoarrays requires a deep understanding of the basic mechanisms of peptide binding and assembly at solid substrates. Here we show by…
Hydrogen bonds are a common feature in protein folding and aggregation. Due to their chemical peculiarities in terms of strength and directionality, a particular attention must be paid to the definition of the hydrogen bond potential…
Coarse-grained models are a core computational tool in theoretical chemistry and biophysics. A judicious choice of a coarse-grained model can yield physical insight by isolating the essential degrees of freedom that dictate the…
We perform a generalized-ensemble simulation of a small peptide taking the interactions among all atoms into account. From this simulation we obtain thermodynamic quantities over a wide range of temperatures. In particular, we show that the…
The amyloid $\beta$ peptide (A$\beta$42), whose aggregation is associated with Alzheimer's disease, is an amphiphatic peptide with a high propensity to self-assemble. A$\beta$42 has a net negative charge at physiological pH and modulations…
Polypeptides can self-assemble into hierarchically organized fibrils consisting of a stack of individually folded polypeptides driven together by hydrophobic interaction. Using a coarse grained model, we systematically studied this…
Small peptides are model molecules for the amino acid residues that are the constituents of proteins. In any bottom-up approach to understand the properties of these macromolecules essential in the functioning of every living being, to…
Acid-base equilibria directly influence the functionality and behavior of particles in a system. Due to the ionizing effects of acid-base functional groups, particles will undergo charge exchange. The degree of ionization and their…
Most biological molecules contain acido-basic groups that modulate their structure and interactions. A consequence is that pH gradients, local heterogeneities and dynamic variations are used by cells and organisms to drive or regulate…
We investigate the effect of macromolecular crowding on protein folding, using purely repulsive crowding particles and a self-organizing polymer model of protein folding. We find that the thermodynamics of folding for typical alpha-, beta-…
Synthetic copolymers and biopolymers, such as polypeptides and double-stranded DNA, often exhibit strong variations in bending stiffness along their contour, which can significantly impact conformational behavior at larger scales. To…
Electrostatic interactions play a fundamental role in the structure and function of proteins. Due to ionizable amino acid residues present on the solvent-exposed surfaces of proteins, the protein charge is not constant but varies with the…
Peptide-based drugs can bind to protein interaction sites that small molecules often cannot, and are easier to produce than large protein drugs. However, designing effective peptide binders is difficult. A typical peptide has an enormous…
We present a minimal model for simulating dynamics of assorted lipid assemblies in a computationally efficient manner. Our model is particle-based and consists of coarse-grained beads put together on a modular platform to give generic…
Cellular functions are established through biological evolution, but are constrained by the laws of physics. For instance, the physics of protein folding limits the lengths of cellular polypeptide chains. Consequently, many cellular…
Protein biologics hold immense potential in therapeutic applications, but their ephemeral nature has hindered their widespread application. The effects of different stressors on protein folding have long been studied, but whether these…
Membrane bending is an extensively studied problem from both modeling and experimental perspectives because of the wide implications of curvature generation in cell biology. Many of the curvature generating aspects in membranes can be…
Protein inference plays a vital role in the proteomics study. Two major approaches could be used to handle the problem of protein inference; top-down and bottom-up. This paper presents a framework for protein inference, which uses hardware…
This article focuses on phase and aggregation behavior for linear chains composed of blocks of hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments. Phase and conformational transitions of patterned chains are relevant for understanding liquid-liquid…