A dynamical approach to protein folding

Alessandro Torcini, Roberto Livi, Antonio Politi

Published 2001-03-13Version 1

In this paper we show that a dynamical description of the protein folding process provides an effective representation of equilibrium properties and it allows for a direct investigation of the mechanisms ruling the approach towards the native configuration. The results reported in this paper have been obtained for a two-dimensional toy-model of amino acid sequences, whose native configurations were previously determined by Monte Carlo techniques. The somewhat controversial scenario emerging from the comparison among various thermodynamical indicators is definitely better resolved relying upon a truly dynamical description, that points out the crucial role played by long-range interactions in determining the characteristic step-wise evolution of ``good'' folders to their native state. It is worth stressing that this dynamical scenario is consistent with the information obtained by exploring the energy landscapes of different sequences. This suggests that even the identification of more efficient ``static'' indicators should take into account the peculiar features associated with the complex ``orography'' of the landscape.