Related papers: Structural asymmetry along protein sequences and c…
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…
We study the impact of mutations (changes in amino acid sequence) on the thermodynamics of simple protein-like heteropolymers consisting of N monomers, representing the amino acid sequence. The sequence is designed to fold into its native…
In this work we employ various methods of analysis (unfolding simulations and comparative analysis of structures and sequences of proteomes of thermophilic organisms) to show that organisms can follow two major strategies of thermophilic…
We propose a model that explains the hierarchical organization of proteins in fold families. The model, which is based on the evolutionary selection of proteins by their native state stability, reproduces patterns of amino acids conserved…
Gene translation is the process in which intracellular macro-molecules, called ribosomes, decode genetic information in the mRNA chain into the corresponding proteins. Gene translation includes several steps. During the elongation step,…
Symmetry is closely intertwined with the function, genetics, and chemical properties of multiprotein complexes. Here, we explore the relation between structural symmetry and the ability of membrane proteins to sense and induce membrane…
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…
The energy for protein folding arises from multiple sources and is not large in total. In spite of the many specific successes of energy landscape and other approaches, there still seems to be some missing guiding factor that explains how…
An effective model for protein structures is important for the study of protein geometry, which, to a large extent, determine the functions of proteins. There are a number of approaches for modelling; one might focus on the conformation of…
Transcription factors (TFs) exert their regulatory action by binding to DNA with specific sequence preferences. However, different TFs can partially share their binding sequences due to their common evolutionary origin. This `redundancy' of…
Protein dynamics form a critical bridge between protein structure and function, yet the impact of evolution on ultrafast processes inside proteins remains enigmatic. This study delves deep into nanosecond-scale protein dynamics of a…
The native state structures of globular proteins are stable and well-packed indicating that self-interactions are favored over protein-solvent interactions under folding conditions. We use this as a guiding principle to derive the geometry…
Proteins need to selectively interact with specific targets among a multitude of similar molecules in the cell. But despite a firm physical understanding of binding interactions, we lack a general theory of how proteins evolve high…
Biological diversity has evolved despite the essentially infinite complexity of protein sequence space. We present a hierarchical approach to the efficient searching of this space and quantify the evolutionary potential of our approach with…
A novel approach to protein folding dynamics is presented. We suggest that folding of protein may be mediated via interaction with solitons which propagate along the molecular chain. A simple toy model is presented in which a Sine-Gordon…
Much of the complexity observed in gene regulation originates from cooperative protein-DNA binding. While studies of the target search of proteins for their specific binding sites on the DNA have revealed design principles for the…
The three dimensional structure of a protein is an outcome of the interactions of its constituent amino acids in 3D space. Considering the amino acids as nodes and the interactions among them as edges we have constructed and analyzed…
Non-coding RNA are functional molecules that are not translated into proteins. Their function comes as important regulators of biological function. Because they are not translated, they need not be as stable as other types of RNA. The TKF91…
Protein structure prediction often hinges on multiple sequence alignments (MSAs), which underperform on low-homology and orphan proteins. We introduce PLAME, a lightweight MSA design framework that leverages evolutionary embeddings from…
Protein contacts contain important information for protein structure and functional study, but contact prediction from sequence information remains very challenging. Recently evolutionary coupling (EC) analysis, which predicts contacts by…