Role of pulling direction in understanding the energy landscape of proteins

R. Rajesh, D. Giri, I. Jensen, and S. Kumar
Phys. Rev. E 78, 021905 – Published 13 August 2008

Abstract

Single-molecule force spectroscopy provide details of the underlying energy surfaces of proteins which are essential to the understanding of their unfolding process. Recently, it has been observed experimentally that by pulling proteins in different directions relative to their secondary structure, one can gain a better understanding of the shape of the energy landscape. We consider simple lattice models which are anisotropic in nature to study the response of a force in unfolding of a polymer. Our analytical solution of the model, supported by extensive numerical calculations, reveal that the force temperature diagrams are very different depending on the direction of the applied force. We find that either unzipping or shearing kind transitions dominate the dynamics of the unfolding process depending solely on the direction of the applied force.

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  • Received 3 April 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.78.021905

©2008 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

R. Rajesh

  • Institute of Mathematical Sciences, CIT Campus, Taramani, Chennai-600113, India

D. Giri

  • Department of Applied Physics, IT, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221 005, India

I. Jensen

  • Department of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia

S. Kumar

  • Department of Physics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221 005, India

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Vol. 78, Iss. 2 — August 2008

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