[Advances in Chemical Physics] Advances in Chemical Physics (Proteins: A Theoretical Perspective of Dynamics, Structure, and Thermodynamics) || Rigid-Body Motions

✍ Scribed by Brooks, Charles L.; Karplus, Martin; Pettitt, B. Montgomery

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 970 KB
• Edition: 1
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 0471628018
• DOI: 10.1002/9780470141205.ch7

✦ Synopsis

In this chapter we focus on the internal motions of proteins that can be described approximately as displacements of groups of atoms whose relative positions are kept fixed. These include structural changes and fluctuations involving helices, domains, and subunits (see Table I). We present examples for which dynamical as well as structural studies are available. It is clear from the results of such studies that the atomic and sidechain fluctuations (see Chapt. VI) that accompany the rigid-body motions play an important role in reducing the energies involved, and in cases where activation barriers are present, in obtaining rates on a time scale that permits them to be of functional significance.