Related papers: Mechanisms underlying sequence-independent beta-sh…
Amyloid fibers are aggregates of proteins. They are built out of a peptide called $\beta$--amyloid (A$\beta$) containing between 41 and 43 residues, produced by the action of an enzyme which cleaves a much larger protein known as the…
Biological systems are majorly dependent on their property of bistability in order to exhibit nongenetic heterogeneity in terms of cellular morphology and physiology. Spatial patterns of phenotypically heterogeneous cells, arising due to…
We study the self-assembly behaviour of patchy particles with `protein-like' interactions that can be considered as a minimal model for the assembly of viral capsids and other shell-like protein complexes. We thoroughly explore the…
Thermodynamic aspects of chemical reactions have a long history in the Physical Chemistry literature. In particular, biochemical cycles - the building-blocks of biochemical systems - require a source of energy to function. However, although…
We apply a recently developed model of cytoskeletal force generation to study a cell intrinsic contractility, as well as its response to external loading. The model is based on a non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of the…
The question of whether proteins originate from random sequences of amino acids is addressed. A statistical analysis is performed in terms of blocked and random walk values formed by binary hydrophobic assignments of the amino acids along…
The relationship between interactions, flexibility and disorder in proteins has been explored from many angles: folding upon binding, flexibility of the core relative to the periphery, entropy changes, etc. In this work, we provide…
We refine a protein model that reproduces fundamental aspects of protein thermodynamics. The model exhibits two transitions, hot and cold unfolding. The number of relevant parameters is reduced to three: 1) binding energy of folding…
For the vast majority of naturally occurring, small, single domain proteins folding is often described as a two-state process that lacks detectable intermediates. This observation has often been rationalized on the basis of a nucleation…
A protein's function depends critically on its conformational ensemble, a collection of energy weighted structures whose balance depends on temperature and environment. Though recent deep learning (DL) methods have substantially advanced…
In this paper, we introduce an approach to the protein folding problem from the point of view of statistical physics. Protein folding is a stochastic process by which a polypeptide folds into its characteristic and functional 3D structure…
What energetic and solvation effects underlie the remarkable two-state thermodynamics and folding/unfolding kinetics of small single-domain proteins? To address this question, we investigate the folding and unfolding of a hierarchy of…
A model for a monolayer of two types of particles spontaneously forming ordered patterns is studied by a mesoscopic theory and by MC simulations. We assume hard-cores of the same size for both components, short-range attraction long-range…
A microscopic theory of the free energy barriers and folding routes for minimally frustrated proteins is presented, greatly expanding on the presentation of the variational approach outlined previously [J. J. Portman, S. Takada, P. G.…
In order to understand the nuclei which develop during the course of protein folding and unfolding, we examine phase segregation of a single heteropolymer chain which occurs in equilibrium. These segregated conformations are characterized…
A theoretical framework is developed to study the dynamics of protein folding. The key insight is that the search for the native protein conformation is influenced by the rate r at which external parameters, such as temperature, chemical…
The formation of fibrillar aggregates seems to be a common characteristic of polypeptide chains, although the observation of these aggregates may depend on appropriate experimental conditions. Partially folded intermediates seem to have an…
The conformation space of a 20-residue antiparallel $\beta$-sheet peptide, sampled by molecular dynamics simulations, is mapped to a network. Conformations are nodes of the network, and the transitions between them are links. The…
A square-lattice model for the formation of secondary structures in proteins, the hydrogen-bonding model, extended to include the effects of solvent quality, is examined in the framework of the Bethe approximation.
First shells of hydration and bulk solvent plays a crucial role in the folding of proteins. Here, the role of water in the dynamics of proteins has been investigated using a theoretical protein-solvent model and a statistical physics…