Related papers: Conformations of Proteins in Equilibrium
An exactly solvable model based on the topology of a protein native state is applied to identify bottlenecks and key-sites for the folding of HIV-1 Protease. The predicted sites are found to correlate well with clinical data on resistance…
We carry out a theoretical study of the vibrational and relaxation properties of naturally-occurring proteins with the purpose of characterizing both the folding and equilibrium thermodynamics. By means of a suitable model we provide a full…
Drug resistance to HIV-1 Protease involves accumulation of multiple mutations in the protein. Here we investigate the role of these mutations by using molecular dynamics simulations which exploit the influence of the native-state topology…
We propose a protein model based on a hierarchy of constraints that force the protein to follow certain pathways when changing conformation. The model exhibits a first order phase transition, cooperativity and is exactly solvable. It also…
Novel numerical techniques, validated by an analysis of barnase and chymotrypsin inhibitor, are used to elucidate the paramount role played by the geometry of the protein backbone in steering the folding to the correct native state. It is…
The results of minimal model calculations suggest that the stability and the kinetic accessibility of the native state of small globular proteins are controlled by few "hot" sites. By mean of molecular dynamics simulations around the native…
While all the information required for the folding of a protein is contained in its amino acid sequence, one has not yet learned how to extract this information to predict the three--dimensional, biologically active, native conformation of…
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…
Random heteropolymers do not display the typical equilibrium properties of globular proteins, but are the starting point to understand the physics of proteins and, in particular, to describe their non-native states. So far, they have been…
The differing ability of polypeptide conformations to act as the native state of proteins has long been rationalized in terms of differing kinetic accessibility or thermodynamic stability. Building on the successful applications of physical…
I investigate a disordered version of a simplified model of protein folding, with binary degrees of freedom, applied to an ideal beta-hairpin structure. Disorder is introduced by assuming that the contact energies are independent and…
Being the HIV-1 Protease (HIV-1-PR) an essential enzyme in the viral life cycle, its inhibition can control AIDS. The folding of single domain proteins, like each of the monomers forming the HIV-1-PR homodimer, is controlled by local…
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…
Learning how proteins fold will hardly have any impact in the way conventional -- active site centered -- drugs are designed. On the other hand, this knowledge is proving instrumental in defining a new paradigm for the identification of…
Being HIV-1-PR an essential enzyme in the viral life cycle, its inhibition can control AIDS. Because the folding of single domain proteins, like HIV-1-PR is controlled by local elementary structures (LES, folding units stabilized by…
Comments: 6 pages RevTeX, 6 Postscript figures. We review a statistical mechanics treatment of the stability of globular proteins based on a simple model Hamiltonian taking into account protein self interactions and protein-water…
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…
One of the main problems of drug design is that of optimizing the drug--target interaction. In the case in which the target is a viral protein displaying a high mutation rate, a second problem arises, namely the eventual development of…
A computational method is developed to work on an inverse equilibrium problem with an interest towards applications with protein folding. In general, we are given a set of equilibrium confgiurations and want to derive the most probable…
The authors address the problem of downhill protein folding in the framework of a simple statistical mechanical model, which allows an exact solution for the equilibrium and a semianalytical treatment of the kinetics. Focusing on protein…