Tightening of knots in proteins

Abstract

We perform theoretical studies of stretching of 20 proteins with knots within a coarse grained model. The knot's ends are found to jump to well defined sequential locations that are associated with sharp turns whereas in homopolymers they diffuse around and eventually slide off. The waiting times of the jumps are increasingly stochastic as the temperature is raised. Larger knots do not return to their native locations when a protein is released after stretching.

4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Diffusion mechanisms of localised knots along a polymer

Cited by in corpus (8)

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