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PROTEIN FOLDING STAGES AND UNIVERSAL EXPONENTS

KERSON HUANG

Physics Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA 02139, USA

Institute of Advanced Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639673, Singapore

https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217984910024602Cited by:1 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

We propose three stages in protein folding, based on physical arguements involving the interplay between the hydrophobic effect and hydrogen bonding, and computer simulations using the CSAW (conditioned self-avoiding walk) model. These stages are characterized by universal exponents ν = 3/5, 3/7, 2/5 in the power law R ~ N^ν, where R is the radius of gyration and N is the number of residues. They correspond to the experimentally observed stages: unfolded, preglobule, molten globule.

Invited talk given at the Conference in Honor of Murray Gell-Mann's 80th Birthday: Quantum Mechanics, Elementary Particles, Quantum Cosmology and Complexity, 24–26 February 2010, Singapore.

Keywords:

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