Machines of Life: From Small Proteins to Large Biomolecular Machines

Globally the energy landscape of a folding protein resembles a partially rough funnel with reduced energetic frustration. A consequence of minimizing energetic frustration is that the topology of the native fold also plays a major role in the folding mechanism. Some folding motifs are easier to design than others suggesting the possibility that evolution not only selected sequences with sufficiently small energetic frustration but also selected more easily designable native structures. The overall structures of the on-route and off-route (traps) intermediates for the folding of more complex proteins are also strongly influenced by topology.


Hubert van Hecke
Last modified: Thu Feb 24 15:14:09 MST 2011