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Summary:

There are nearly 100 000 different protein sequences encoded in the human genome, each with its own specific fold. Understanding how a newly formed polypeptide sequence finds its way to the correct fold is one of the greatest challenges in the modern structural biology. The aim of this thesis is to provide novel insights into protein folding by considering the problem from the point of view of statistical mechanics. The thesis starts by investigating the fundamental degrees of freedom in polypeptides that are responsible for the conformational transitions. This knowledge is then applied in the statistical mechanics description of helix-coil transitions in polypeptides. Finally, the theoretical formalism is generalized to the case of proteins in an aqueous environment. The major novelty of this work lies in combining (a) a formalism based on fundamental physical properties of the system and (b) the resulting possibility of describing the folding-unfolding transitions quantitatively. The clear physical nature of the formalism opens the way to further applications in a large variety of systems and processes.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Theoretical Methods of Quantum Mechanics
• Degrees of Freedom in Polypeptides and Proteins
• Partition Function of a Polypeptide
• Phase Transitions in Polypeptides
• Folding of Proteins in Aqueous Environment.

Author/Creator:

Yakubovich, Alexander V.

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

Theory of phase transitions in polypeptides and proteins [by Yakubovich, A.V.]

Related Series:

Springer theses

Subjects:

Polypeptides

Protein folding

Chemistry, Physical and theoretical

physical chemistry

Genres:

dissertations

Academic theses

Dissertation Notes:

Ph. D. ― Goethe University of Frankfurt.

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 121 pages) : color illustrations.

Digital Characteristics:

text file

Call Numbers:

QP951 .Y358 2011eb

ISBNs:

9783642225925 (electronic bk.)
3642225926 (electronic bk.)
3642225918 (print) [Invalid]
9783642225918 (print) [Invalid]
1283476126
9781283476126
9783642225918 [Invalid]

Other Standard Numbers:

Digital Object Identifier: 10.1007/978-3-642-22592-5

OCLC Numbers:

756678720