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Published December 31, 2009 | Published
Journal Article Open

Jamming Proteins with Slipknots and Their Free Energy Landscape

Abstract

Theoretical studies of stretching proteins with slipknots reveal a surprising growth of their unfolding times when the stretching force crosses an intermediate threshold. This behavior arises as a consequence of the existence of alternative unfolding routes that are dominant at different force ranges. The existence of an intermediate, metastable configuration where the slipknot is jammed is responsible for longer unfolding times at higher forces. Simulations are performed with a coarse-grained model with further quantification using a refined description of the geometry of the slipknots. The simulation data are used to determine the free energy landscape of the protein, which supports recent analytical predictions.

Additional Information

© 2009 The American Physical Society. Received 7 July 2009; published 29 December 2009. We thank T. Deguchi, O. Dudko, K. Millett, and E. Rawdon for insightful discussions. The work of J. S. was supported by the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics sponsored by the NSF (Grant No. PHY-0822283) with additional support from NSF-MCB-0543906. P. S. acknowledges the support of the Humboldt Foundation, DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-92ER40701FG-02, Marie- Curie IOF Fellowship, and Foundation for Polish Science.

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