On the origin of protein folding energy landscapes by means of genetic selection

by Prof. T. Coolen (King's College London, UK)

Wednesday 13 Feb 2008, 15:00 → 17:00 Europe/Rome

aula Conversi - Edificio G. Marconi (Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi)

We study the coupled dynamics of primary and secondary structure formation (i.e. slow genetic sequence selection and fast folding) in the context of a solvable microscopic model that includes both short-range steric forces and long-range polarity driven forces. Our solution is based on the diagonalization of replicated transfer matrices and leads in the thermodynamic limit to explicit predictions regarding phase transitions and phase diagrams at genetic equilibrium. The predicted phenomenology allows for natural physical interpretations, and finds excellent support in numerical simulations.