Biology – Quantitative Biology – Biomolecules
Scientific paper
2010-07-26
PLoS ONE. 2007; 2(5): e468
Biology
Quantitative Biology
Biomolecules
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1868595/ http://www.weizmann.ac.il/complex/tlusty/papers/PLoSONE2007.pdf
Scientific paper
10.1371/journal.pone.0000468.
To perform recognition, molecules must locate and specifically bind their targets within a noisy biochemical environment with many look-alikes. Molecular recognition processes, especially the induced-fit mechanism, are known to involve conformational changes. This arises a basic question: does molecular recognition gain any advantage by such conformational changes? By introducing a simple statistical-mechanics approach, we study the effect of conformation and flexibility on the quality of recognition processes. Our model relates specificity to the conformation of the participant molecules and thus suggests a possible answer: Optimal specificity is achieved when the ligand is slightly off target, that is a conformational mismatch between the ligand and its main target improves the selectivity of the process. This indicates that deformations upon binding serve as a conformational proofreading mechanism, which may be selected for via evolution.
Savir Yonatan
Tlusty Tsvi
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