Related papers: Protein folding rates correlate with heterogeneity…
Physical mechanisms underlying the empirical correlation between relative contact order (CO) and folding rate among naturally-occurring small single-domain proteins are investigated by evaluating postulated interaction schemes for a set of…
Simplified Go models, where only native contacts interact favorably, have proven useful to characterize some aspects of the folding of small proteins. The success of these models is limited by the fact that all residues interact in the same…
Perturbing a Go model towards a realistic protein Hamiltonian by adding non-native interactions, we find that the folding rate is in general enhanced as ruggedness is initially increased, as long as the protein is sufficiently large and…
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…
Molecular dynamics studies of Go models of proteins with the 10-12 contact potential and the bond and dihedral angle terms indicate statistical similarities to other Go models, e.g. with the Lennard-Jones contact potentials. The folding…
A variety of experimental and theoretical studies have established that the folding process of monomeric proteins is strongly influenced by the topology of the native state. In particular, folding times have been shown to correlate well…
Models of protein energetics which neglect interactions between amino acids that are not adjacent in the native state, such as the Go model, encode or underlie many influential ideas on protein folding. Implicit in this simplification is a…
We use a free energy functional theory to elucidate general properties of heterogeneously ordering, fast folding proteins, and we test our conclusions with lattice simulations. We find that both structural and energetic heterogeneity can…
A general theoretical framework is developed using free energy functional methods to understand the effects of heterogeneity in the folding of a well-designed protein. Native energetic heterogeneity arising from non-uniformity in native…
Previous research has shown a strong correlation of protein folding rates to the native state geometry, yet a complete explanation for this dependence is still lacking. Here we study the rate-geometry relationship with a simple statistical…
There are several simple criteria of folding to a native state in model proteins. One of them involves crossing of a threshold value of the RMSD distance away from the native state. Another checks whether all native contacts are…
The folding of a protein towards its native state is a rather complicated process. However there are empirical evidences that the folding time correlates with the contact order, a simple measure of the spatial organisation of the native…
We consider two types of Go models of a protein (crambin) and study their kinetics through molecular dynamics simulations. In the first model, the residue -- residue contact interactions are selected based on a cutoff distance, $R_c$,…
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…
Focusing on a small set of proteins that i) fold in a concerted, all-or-none fashion and ii) do not contain knots or slipknots, we show that the Gauss linking integral, the torsion and the number of sequence-distant contacts provide…
The time evolution of the formation probability of native bonds has been studied for designed sequences which fold fast into the native conformation. From this analysis a clear hierarchy of bonds emerge a) local, fast forming highly stable…
Extensive Monte Carlo folding simulations for four proteins of various structural classes are carried out, using a single atomistic potential. In all cases, collapse occurs at a very early stage, and proteins fold into their native-like…
Scaling of folding times in Go models of proteins and of decoy structures with the Lennard-Jones potentials in the native contacts reveal %robust power law trends when studied under optimal folding conditions. The power law exponent depends…
We present a statistical mechanics approach to the protein folding problem. We first review some of the basic properties of proteins, and introduce some physical models to describe their thermodynamics. These models rely on a random…
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…