Monthly Archives: August 2015

Beyond spherical cow (patchy protein model)

We published in Journal of Physical Chemistry two papers on attractive interactions between like-charged biomolecules in the presence of explicit salt. Cemil Yigit introduced charged patchy protein models (CPPM), which allows to mimic basic electrostatic properties of proteins. The model allows for computationally feasible study of protein aggregation, or protein adsorption to polyelectrolyte. Although the protein is overall negatively (-)charged, the presence of highly charged(+) domains allows him to strongly bind the negatively charged(-) polyelectrolyte. The simulations were supplemented by mean-field theories such as Debye-Hückel, DLVO, or the orientationally averaged pair potential (OAPP).

CPPM-PEProtein-Protein paper

Protein-Polyelectrolyte paper

Spherical cow

Advertisement