Schedule May 27, 2011
Protein Dynamics and Stability: Universality vs. Specificity
Rony Granek (Ben-Gurion Univ.)

The Stella and Avram Goren-Goldstein Department of Biotechnology Engineering, the Ilse Katz Institute for Meso and Nanoscale Science and Technology, and the Reimund Stadler Minerva Center for Mesoscale Macromolecular Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of The Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel

I shall discuss the fractal characteristics of natively folded proteins and their relation to protein dynamics and function. A universal equation of state, describing the relation between the spectral and fractal dimensions of a protein and the number of amino acids, will be shown. Using structural data from the protein data bank of about 5,000 proteins, and the Gaussian network model, I shall demonstrate that the equation of state is well obeyed. Various dynamical quantities will be shown to evolve anomalously. The effect of the hydrodynamic interaction between amino acids will be also elucidated. Finally, I will discuss the dynamic structure factor S(k,t) of proteins at large wavenumbers k, that are sensitive to the protein internal dynamics, and demonstrate its stretched exponential decay.

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