Related papers: A protein model exhibiting three folding transitio…
Mechanical unfolding of polyproteins by force spectroscopy provides valuable insight into their free energy landscapes. Most phenomenological models of the unfolding process are two-state and/or one dimensional, with the details of the…
Using Monte Carlo dynamics and the Monte Carlo Histogram Method, the simple three-dimensional 27 monomer lattice copolymer is examined in depth. The thermodynamic properties of various sequences are examined contrasting the behavior of good…
The hydrophobic effect is the dominant force which drives a protein towards its native state, but its physics has not been thoroughly understood yet. We introduce an exactly solvable model of the solvation of non-polar molecules in water,…
A joint experimental / theoretical investigation of the elastin-like octapeptide GVG(VPGVG) was carried out. In this paper a comprehensive molecular dynamics study of the temperature dependent folding and unfolding of the octapeptide is…
Water plays a major role in bio-systems, greatly contributing to determine their structure, stability and even function. It is well know, for instance, that proteins require a minimum amount of water to be functionally active. Since the…
We study folding in 16-monomer heteropolymers on the square lattice. For a given sequence, thermodynamic properties and stability of the native state are unique. However, the kinetics of folding depends on the model of dynamics adopted for…
We present a simple model of protein folding dynamics that captures key qualitative elements recently seen in all-atom simulations. The goals of this theory are to serve as a simple formalism for gaining deeper insight into the physical…
We study the thermodynamic behavior of a simple off-lattice model for protein folding. The model is two-dimensional and has two different ``amino acids''. Using numerical simulations of all chains containing eight or ten monomers, we…
We present a computational study on the folding and aggregation of proteins in aqueous environment, as function of its concentration. We show how the increase of the concentration of individual protein species can induce a partial unfolding…
We study the thermodynamics and kinetics of folding for a small peptide. Our data rely on Monte Carlo simulations where the interactions among all atoms are taken into account. Monte Carlo kinetics is used to study folding of the peptide at…
Using a simple three-dimensional lattice copolymer model and Monte Carlo dynamics, we study the collapse and folding of protein-like heteropolymers. The polymers are 27 monomers long and consist of two monomer types. Although these chains…
It is widely accepted that (1) the natural or folded state of proteins is a global energy minimum, and (2) in most cases proteins fold to a unique state determined by their amino acid sequence. The H-P (hydrophobic-hydrophilic) model is a…
Protein folding is analyzed using a replica variational formalism to investigate some free energy landscape characteristics relevant for dynamics. A random contact interaction model that satisfies the minimum frustration principle is used…
A low-temperature dynamical transition has been reported in several proteins. We provide the first observation of a `protein-like' dynamical transition in nonbiological aqueous environments. To this aim we exploit the popular colloidal…
In the cell, proteins fold and perform complex functions through global structural rearrangements. Function requires a protein to be at the brink of stability to be susceptible to small environmental fluctuations, yet stable enough to…
Integral membrane proteins deform the surrounding bilayer creating long-ranged forces that influence distant proteins. These forces can be attractive or repulsive, depending on the proteins' shape, height, contact angle with the bilayer, as…
The interactions of a protein, its phase behavior, and ultimately, its ability to function, are all influenced by the interactions between the protein and its hydration waters. Here we study proteins with a variety of sizes, shapes,…
We propose a scenario for the prebiotic co-evolution of RNA and of fast folding proteins with large entropy gaps as observed today. We show from very general principles that the folding and unfolding of the proteins synthesized by RNA can…
Single molecule force spectroscopy provide details of the underlying energy surfaces of proteins which are essential to the understanding of their unfolding process. Recently, it has been observed experimentally that by pulling proteins in…
Molecular dynamics simulations of folding in an off-lattice protein model reveal a nucleation scenario, in which a few well-defined contacts are formed with high probability in the transition state ensemble of conformations. Their…