Related papers: Proteins and polymers
Proteins fold to a specific functional conformation with a densely packed hydrophobic core that controls their stability. We develop a geometric, yet all-atom model for proteins that explains the universal core packing fraction of…
Protein aggregation in cell membrane is vital for the majority of biological functions. Recent experimental results suggest that transmembrane domains of proteins such as $\alpha$-helices and $\beta$-sheets have different structural…
In structure-based models of proteins, one often assumes that folding is accomplished when all contacts are established. This assumption may frequently lead to a conceptual problem that folding takes place in a temperature region of very…
The motion involved in barrier crossing for protein folding are investigated in terms of the chain dynamics of the polymer backbone, completing the microscopic description of protein folding presented in the previous paper. Local reaction…
Advances in experimental techniques and in theoretical models have improved our understanding of protein crystallization. But they have also left open questions regarding the protein phase behavior and self-assembly kinetics, such as why…
We study a minimal extension of the worm-like chain to describe polypeptides having alpha-helical secondary structure. In this model presence/absence of secondary structure enters as a scalar variable that controls the local chain bending…
This paper reviews recent Monte Carlo simulation studies of the glassy behavior in thin polymer films. The simulations employ a version of the bond-fluctuation lattice model, in which the glass transition is driven by the competition…
Synthetic copolymers and biopolymers, such as polypeptides and double-stranded DNA, often exhibit strong variations in bending stiffness along their contour, which can significantly impact conformational behavior at larger scales. To…
Molecules provide the ultimate language in terms of which physiology and pathology must be understood. Myriads of proteins participate in elaborate networks of interactions and perform chemical activities coordinating the life of cells. To…
Proteins contain a large fraction of regular, repeating conformations, called secondary structure. A simple, generic definition of secondary structure is presented which consists of measuring local correlations along the protein chain.…
Proteins are intricate molecular machines whose complexity arises from the heterogeneity of the amino acid building blocks and their dynamic network of many-body interactions. These nanomachines gain function when put in the context of a…
For biologically relevant macromolecules such as intrinsically disordered proteins, internal degrees of freedom that allow for shape changes have a large influence on both the motion and function of the compound. A detailed understanding of…
In living cells, proteins self-assemble into large functional structures based on specific interactions between molecularly complex patches. Due to this complexity, protein self-assembly results from a competition between a large number of…
The ability to control the crystallization behaviour (including its absence) of particles, be they biomolecules such as globular proteins, inorganic colloids, nanoparticles, or metal atoms in an alloy, is of both fundamental and…
What are the molecular mechanisms that dictate protein-protein binding stability and whether those are related to the ones behind protein fold stability are still largely open questions. Indeed, despite many past efforts, we still lack…
Rigid particles pack into structures, such as sand dunes on the beach, whose overall stability is determined by the average number of contacts between particles. However, when packing spatially extended objects with flexible shapes,…
Protein structure is generally conceptualized as the global arrangement or of smaller, local motifs of helices, sheets, and loops. These regular, recurring secondary structural elements have well-understood and standardized definitions in…
Hybrid molecular dynamics/Monte Carlo simulations used to study melts of unentangled, thermoreversibly associating supramolecular polymers. In this first of a series of papers, we describe and validate a model that is effective in…
Long, flexible physical filaments are naturally tangled and knotted, from macroscopic string down to long-chain molecules. The existence of knotting in a filament naturally affects its configuration and properties, and may be very stable or…
Protein-mediated interactions are ubiquitous in the cellular environment, and particularly in the nucleus, where they are responsible for the structuring of chromatin. We show through molecular--dynamics simulations of a polymer surrounded…