A Monte Carlo study of the amylosic chain conformation

Monte Carlo studies of the unperturbed amylosic chain conformation have been carried out in the approximation of separable chain configuration energies. Sample chains of arbitrary chain length have been generated so as to be distributed consistent with refined estimates of the configuration energy and thus suitable for evaluation of averages of the desired configuration-dependent properties. Perspective drawings of representative chains from the Monte Carlo sample have been made for comparison with standard idealizations of amylosic chain conformation. He molecular model employed generates a randomly coiling chain possessing perceptible regions of left-handed pseudohelical backbone trajectory. Distribution functions for the end-to-end distance of short amylosic chains disclose some propensity for the chain to suffer self-intersections at sort range in the chain sequence, which may vitiate the usual amylosic chain models based on the assumed independence of sets of glycosidic linkage torsion angles. The amylosic persistence vector and persistence length have been calculated as a function of chain length for the chain model employed.