Perspective: Structural fluctuation of protein and Anfinsen’s thermodynamic hypothesis

Structural and thermodynamic properties of Alumina

We have investigated the electronic structure and thermodynamic properties of supercell of the -Al2O3 by first-principles calculation in framework of density functional theory (DFT) and full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) with generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and by quasi-harmonic Debye model. Our calculated value for direct band gap of α-Al2O3 is 7.2 eV which i...

Smooth Change, Mechanistic Fluctuation: Thermodynamic System Drift in Protein Evolution

If you heat a protein up, the tertiary contacts that secure its three-dimensional shape weaken until eventually the protein unfolds, or ‘‘melts.’’ Not surprisingly, proteins from thermophilic organisms, such as the bacteria that live in hot springs, tend to have higher melting temperatures than their homologs from mesophiles like humans or the bacteria that live within them. The increased melti...

Thermodynamic constraints on fluctuation phenomena.

The relationships among reversible Carnot cycles, the absence of perpetual motion machines, and the existence of a nondecreasing globally unique entropy function form the starting point of many textbook presentations of the foundations of thermodynamics. However, the thermal fluctuation phenomena associated with statistical mechanics has been argued to restrict the domain of validity of this ba...

Thermodynamic and Structural Analysis of Protein Aggregation and Amyloid Formation

Measuring and comparing structural fluctuation patterns in large protein datasets

MOTIVATION The function of a protein depends not only on its structure but also on its dynamics. This is at the basis of a large body of experimental and theoretical work on protein dynamics. Further insight into the dynamics-function relationship can be gained by studying the evolutionary divergence of protein motions. To investigate this, we need appropriate comparative dynamics methods. The ...