Physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium states

Abstract Many human or animal diseases are related to aggregation of proteins. A viable biological organism should maintain in non-equilibrium states. How protein aggregate and why biological organisms can maintain in non-equilibrium states are not well understood. As a first step to understand such...

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Main Authors: Wen-Jong Ma, Chin-Kun Hu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2017-06-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03136-7
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spelling doaj-0b0432e4ee6540cbb8238651d63ece962020-12-08T00:24:36ZengNature Publishing GroupScientific Reports2045-23222017-06-017111710.1038/s41598-017-03136-7Physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium statesWen-Jong Ma0Chin-Kun Hu1Graduate Institute of Applied Physics, National Chengchi UniversityInstitute of Physics, Academia SinicaAbstract Many human or animal diseases are related to aggregation of proteins. A viable biological organism should maintain in non-equilibrium states. How protein aggregate and why biological organisms can maintain in non-equilibrium states are not well understood. As a first step to understand such complex systems problems, we consider simple model systems containing polymer chains and solvent particles. The strength of the spring to connect two neighboring monomers in a polymer chain is controlled by a parameter s with s → ∞ for rigid-bond. The strengths of bending and torsion angle dependent interactions are controlled by a parameter s A with s A  → −∞ corresponding to no bending and torsion angle dependent interactions. We find that for very small s A , polymer chains tend to aggregate spontaneously and the trend is independent of the strength of spring. For strong springs, the speed distribution of monomers in the parallel (along the direction of the spring to connect two neighboring monomers) and perpendicular directions have different effective temperatures and such systems are in non-equilibrium states.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03136-7
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Wen-Jong Ma
Chin-Kun Hu
spellingShingle Wen-Jong Ma
Chin-Kun Hu
Physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium states
Scientific Reports
author_facet Wen-Jong Ma
Chin-Kun Hu
author_sort Wen-Jong Ma
title Physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium states
title_short Physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium states
title_full Physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium states
title_fullStr Physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium states
title_full_unstemmed Physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium states
title_sort physical mechanism for biopolymers to aggregate and maintain in non-equilibrium states
publisher Nature Publishing Group
series Scientific Reports
issn 2045-2322
publishDate 2017-06-01
description Abstract Many human or animal diseases are related to aggregation of proteins. A viable biological organism should maintain in non-equilibrium states. How protein aggregate and why biological organisms can maintain in non-equilibrium states are not well understood. As a first step to understand such complex systems problems, we consider simple model systems containing polymer chains and solvent particles. The strength of the spring to connect two neighboring monomers in a polymer chain is controlled by a parameter s with s → ∞ for rigid-bond. The strengths of bending and torsion angle dependent interactions are controlled by a parameter s A with s A  → −∞ corresponding to no bending and torsion angle dependent interactions. We find that for very small s A , polymer chains tend to aggregate spontaneously and the trend is independent of the strength of spring. For strong springs, the speed distribution of monomers in the parallel (along the direction of the spring to connect two neighboring monomers) and perpendicular directions have different effective temperatures and such systems are in non-equilibrium states.
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03136-7
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