Hydrogen bonds in polymer folding |
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Authors: | Borg J Jensen M H Sneppen K Tiana G |
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Affiliation: | Niels Bohr Institute and Nordita, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100, Denmark. |
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Abstract: | We studied the thermodynamics of a homopolymeric chain with both van der Waals and directed hydrogen bond interaction. The effect of hydrogen bonds is to reduce dramatically the entropy of low-lying states and to give rise to long-range order and to conformations displaying secondary structures. For compact polymers a transition is found between helix-rich states and low-entropy sheet-dominated states. The consequences of this transition for protein folding and, in particular, for the problem of prions are discussed. |
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