Conformational transitions of heteropolymers in dilute solutions

Details Conformational transitions of heteropolymers in dilute solutions Conformational transitions of heteropolymers in dilute solutions

1998-02-21

arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/9802230v1

Physics

Condensed Matter

Soft Condensed Matter

15 pages, RevTeX, 20 ps figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevE.57.6801

In this paper we extend the Gaussian self-consistent method to permit study of the equilibrium and kinetics of conformational transitions for heteropolymers with any given primary sequence. The kinetic equations earlier derived by us are transformed to a form containing only the mean squared distances between pairs of monomers. These equations are further expressed in terms of instantaneous gradients of the variational free energy. The method allowed us to study exhaustively the stability and conformational structure of some periodic and random aperiodic sequences. A typical phase diagram of a fairly long amphiphilic heteropolymer chain is found to contain phases of the extended coil, the homogeneous globule, the micro-phase separated globule, and a large number of frustrated states, which result in conformational phases of the random coil and the frozen globule. We have also found that for a certain class of sequences the frustrated phases are suppressed. The kinetics of folding from the extended coil to the globule proceeds through non-equilibrium states possessing locally compacted, but partially misfolded and frustrated, structure. This results in a rather complicated multistep kinetic process typical of glassy systems.

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