The Statistics of Energy States of a Hookean Model for Proteins

Authors : Ayşe ERZAN

Pages : 295-310

View : 11 | Download : 4

Publication Date : 0000-00-00

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :A generic model of a random polypeptide chain, with discrete torsional degrees of freedom and Hookean springs connecting pairs of hydrophobic residues, reproduces the energy probability distribution of real proteins over a very large range of energies. We show that this system with harmonic interactions, under dissipative dynamics driven by random noise, leads to a distribution of energy states obeying a modified one-dimensional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with reflecting boundary conditions, and giving rise to distributions of the Wigner or inverse Gaussian form. A continuum approximation leads to a path integral formulation of the problem. PACS 5.65+b,5.70Ln,87.17.Aa
Keywords : Turk J Phys, 24, 2000, , 295 310 Turk J Phys, vol 24, iss 3