Berlin 2005 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 100: Poster Session I

AKB 100.75: Poster

Samstag, 5. März 2005, 16:45–18:45, Poster TU D

Loop-closure principles in protein folding kinetics — •Thomas R. Weikl — Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Theory Division, 14424 Potsdam

How fast and on which routes does a protein fold into its native structure? The answer to this central question of protein folding kinetics appears to depend, to some degree, on generic aspects of the protein structure. One of these aspects is the average localness of structural contacts, which correlates with the folding rates of small single-domain proteins. Another aspect is presented here: The folding routes of many small proteins seem to be dominated by simple loop-closure dependencies between the structural elements. These loop-closure dependencies help to rationalize why mutations in some structural elements strongly affect the kinetics, while mutations in other structural elements don’t. They also explain characteristic changes in the kinetic impact of structural elements when the chain connectivity is altered by circularization or circular permutation.