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arXiv · 1511.06590

Consistent treatment of hydrophobicity in protein lattice models accounts for cold denaturation

Erik van Dijk·Patrick Varilly·Tuomas Knowles·Daan Frenkel·Sanne Abeln
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Abstract

The hydrophobic effect stabilizes the native structure of proteins by minimizing the unfavourable interactions between hydrophobic residues and water through the formation of a hydrophobic core. Here we include the entropic and enthalpic contributions of the hydrophobic effect explicitly in an implicit solvent model. This allows us to capture two important effects: a length-scale dependence and a temperature dependence for the solvation of a hydrophobic particle. This consistent treatment of the hydrophobic effect explains cold denaturation and heat capacity measurements of solvated proteins.

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Erik van Dijk, Patrick Varilly, Tuomas Knowles, Daan Frenkel, Sanne Abeln. 2015-11-25. Consistent treatment of hydrophobicity in protein lattice models accounts for cold denaturation. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.116.078101

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