Thermal folding and mechanical unfolding pathways of protein secondary structures |
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Authors: | Cieplak Marek Hoang Trinh Xuan Robbins Mark O |
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Affiliation: | Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. mc@ifpan.edu.pl |
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Abstract: | Mechanical stretching of secondary structures is studied through molecular dynamics simulations of a Go-like model. Force versus displacement curves are studied as a function of the stiffness and velocity of the pulling device. The succession of stretching events, as measured by the order in which contacts are ruptured, is compared to the sequencing of events during thermal folding and unfolding. Opposite cross-correlations are found for an alpha-helix and a beta-hairpin structure. In a tandem of two alpha-helices, the two constituent helices unravel nearly simultaneously. A simple condition for simultaneous versus sequential unraveling of repeat units is presented. |
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Keywords: | mechanical stretching of proteins protein folding Go model molecular dynamics atomic force microscopy α‐helix β‐hairpin |
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