Conformational Diffusion and Helix Formation Kinetics

Gerhard Hummer; Angel E. García; Shekhar Garde

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.2637

Conformational Diffusion and Helix Formation Kinetics

Gerhard Hummer, Angel E. García, and Shekhar Garde

Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2637 – Published 18 September 2000

Abstract

The time, temperature, and sequence dependences of helix formation kinetics of fully atomistic peptide models in explicit solvent are described quantitatively by a diffusive search within the coil state with barrierless transitions into the helical state. Conformational diffusion leads to nonexponential kinetics and jump-width dependences in temperature jump experiments.

Received 21 April 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.2637

Authors & Affiliations

Gerhard Hummer^1,*, Angel E. García², and Shekhar Garde³

¹Laboratory of Chemical Physics, Building 5, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-0520
²Theoretical Biology and Biophysics Group T-10, MS K710, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
³Department of Chemical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, Troy, New York 12180