Entropy and Barrier-Hopping Determine Conformational Viscoelasticity in Single Biomolecules

Details Entropy and Barrier-Hopping Determine Conformational Viscoelasticity in Single Biomolecules Entropy and Barrier-Hopping Determine Conformational Viscoelasticity in Single Biomolecules

2006-03-30

arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0603828v1

Physics

Condensed Matter

Soft Condensed Matter

25 pages, 7 figures, naturemag.bst, modified nature.cls (naturemodified.cls)

Scientific paper

10.1529/biophysj.106.097709

Biological macromolecules have complex and non-trivial energy landscapes, endowing them a unique conformational adaptability and diversity in function. Hence, understanding the processes of elasticity and dissipation at the nanoscale is important to molecular biology and also emerging fields such as nanotechnology. Here we analyse single molecule fluctuations in an atomic force microscope (AFM) experiment using a generic model of biopolymer viscoelasticity that importantly includes sources of local `internal' conformational dissipation. Comparing two biopolymers, dextran and cellulose, polysaccharides with and without the well-known `chair-to-boat' transition, reveals a signature of this simple conformational change as minima in both the elasticity and internal friction around a characteristic force. A calculation of two-state populations dynamics offers a simple explanation in terms of an elasticity driven by the entropy, and friction by barrier-controlled hopping, of populations on a landscape. The microscopic model, allows quantitative mapping of features of the energy landscape, revealing unexpectedly slow dynamics, suggestive of an underlying roughness to the free energy.

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