Related papers: Structural entanglements in protein complexes
An increasing number of proteins are being discovered with a remarkable and somewhat surprising feature, a knot in their native structures. How the polypeptide chain is able to knot itself during the folding process to form these highly…
Protein aggregation in cell membrane is vital for the majority of biological functions. Recent experimental results suggest that transmembrane domains of proteins such as $\alpha$-helices and $\beta$-sheets have different structural…
A theoretical analysis of the unfolding pathway of simple modular proteins in length- controlled pulling experiments is put forward. Within this framework, we predict the first module to unfold in a chain of identical units, emphasizing the…
The extent of coupling between the folding of a protein and its binding to a substrate varies from protein to protein. Some proteins have highly structured native states in solution, while others are natively disordered and only fold fully…
We perform theoretical studies of stretching of 20 proteins with knots within a coarse grained model. The knot's ends are found to jump to well defined sequential locations that are associated with sharp turns whereas in homopolymers they…
Mechanical stretching of secondary structures is studied through molecular dynamics simulations of a Go-like model. Force vs. displacement curves are studied as a function of the stiffness and velocity of the pulling device. The succession…
Mapping between sequence and structure is currently an open problem in structural biology. Despite many experimental and computational efforts it is not clear yet how the structure is encoded in the sequence. Answering this question may…
Active polymers possess numerous unique properties that are quite different from those observed in the system of small active molecule due to the intricate interplay between their activity and topological constraints. This study focuses on…
Natural protein sequences that self-assemble to form globular structures are compact with high packing densities in the folded states. It is known that proteins unfold upon addition of denaturants, adopting random coil structures. The…
Protein sequences serve as a natural record of the evolutionary constraints that shape their functional structures. We show that it is possible to use only sequence information to go beyond predicting native structures and global stability…
We investigate entanglement in a linear chain of $N$ polar molecules coupled by dipole interaction. In our model, nearest neighbour interaction predominate, and we compute entanglement with the help of a two-party correlation entanglement…
We solve a model that takes into account entropic barriers, frustration, and the organization of a protein-like molecule. For a chain of size $M$, there is an effective folding transition to an ordered structure. Without frustration, this…
A DNA-protein complex modelled by a semiflexible chain and an attractive spherical core is studied in the situation when an external stretching force is acting on one end monomer of the chain while the other end monomer is kept fixed in…
Unlike most synthetic materials, biological materials often stiffen as they are deformed. This nonlinear elastic response, critical for the physiological function of some tissues, has been documented since at least the 19th century, but the…
The forces that mixtures of motorized and passive crosslinking proteins collectively generate between cytoskeletal filaments within our cells are the key drivers of active cellular mechanics. Despite their importance, a unified theory to…
Entanglement of polymer chains is ubiquitous in elastomers, gels, and biological tissues. While the effects of chain entanglement on elasticity and viscoelasticity of polymer networks have been intensively studied, it remains elusive how…
Many organisms exhibit branching morphologies that twist around each other and become entangled. Entanglement occurs when different objects interlock, creating complex and often irreversible configurations. This physical phenomenon is…
Using a structure-based coarse-grained model of proteins, we study the mechanism of unfolding of knotted proteins through heating. We find that the dominant mechanisms of unfolding depend on the temperature applied and are generally…
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…
Mixtures of polymers of varying topologies and stiffnesses display complex emergent rheological properties that often cannot be predicted from their single-component counterparts. For example, entangled blends of ring and linear polymers…