Related papers: Entropic formulation for the protein folding proce…
A coarse-grained off-lattice model that is not biased in any way to the native state is proposed to fold proteins. To predict the native structure in a reasonable time, the model has included the essential effects of water in an effective…
Background: Many attempts have been made to resolve in time the folding of model proteins in computer simulations. Different computational approaches have emerged. Some of these approaches suffer from the insensitivity to the geometrical…
Protein folding is the intricate process by which a linear sequence of amino acids self-assembles into a unique three-dimensional structure. Protein folding kinetics is the study of pathways and time-dependent mechanisms a protein undergoes…
We present a solvable model that predicts the folding kinetics of two-state proteins from their native structures. The model is based on conditional chain entropies. It assumes that folding processes are dominated by small-loop closure…
Many native structures of proteins accomodate complex topological motifs such as knots, lassos, and other geometrical entanglements. How proteins can fold quickly even in the presence of such topological obstacles is a debated question in…
Water and water-mediated interactions determine thermodynamic and kinetics of protein folding, protein aggregation and self-assembly in confined spaces. To obtain insights into the role of water in the context of folding problems, we…
The HP model of protein folding, where the chain exists in a free medium, is investigated using a parallel Monte Carlo scheme based upon Wang-Landau sampling. Expanding on the work of Wust and Landau by introducing a lesser known replica…
We present a numerical Monte Carlo analysis of a continuos spin Ising chain that can describe the statistical proterties of folded proteins. We find that depending on the value of the Metropolis temperature, the model displays the three…
We use a free energy functional theory to elucidate general properties of heterogeneously ordering, fast folding proteins, and we test our conclusions with lattice simulations. We find that both structural and energetic heterogeneity can…
The hydrophobic effect stabilizes the native structure of proteins by minimizing the unfavourable interactions between hydrophobic residues and water through the formation of a hydrophobic core. Here we include the entropic and enthalpic…
We recently introduced a physical model [Hoang et al., P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (2004), Banavar et al., Phys. Rev. E (2004)] for proteins which incorporates, in an approximate manner, several key features such as the inherent anisotropy of a…
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…
A local equilibrium approach for the kinetics of a simplified protein folding model, whose equilibrium thermodynamics is exactly solvable, was developed in [M. Zamparo and A. Pelizzola, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 068106 (2006)]. Important…
The aqueous solvent profoundly influences protein folding, yet its effects are relatively poorly understood. In this study, we investigate the impact of solvation on the folding of lattice proteins by using Monte Carlo simulations. The…
The prediction of the three-dimensional structures of the native state of proteins from the sequences of their amino acids is one of the most important challenges in molecular biology. An essential ingredient to solve this problem within…
We have used computer simulation to study the collapse of a hydrophobic chain in water. We find that the mechanism of collapse is much like that of a first order phase transition. The evaporation of water in the vicinity of the polymer…
The determination of the folding mechanisms of proteins is critical to understand the topological change that can propagate Alzheimer and Creutzfeld-Jakobs diseases, among others. The computational community has paid considerable attention…
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…
Treating realistically the ambient water is one of the main difficulties in applying Monte Carlo methods to protein folding. The solvent-accessible area method, a popular method for treating water implicitly, is investigated by means of…
Using a simple hydrophobic/polar protein model, we perform a Monte Carlo study of the thermodynamics and kinetics of binding to a target structure for two closely related sequences, one of which has a unique folded state while the other is…