Journal article
CROWDING IN FIBRILOGENESIS: EXPERIMENT AND THEORY
Journal of Biosciences, v 24(1), pp 145-145
1999
Abstract
The polymerization of sickle hemoglobin is one of the best characterized protein assembly reactions, and is based on a double nucleation mechanism in which fibers can nucleate from pure solution or nucleate on the surface of other polymers. Once nucleated, the fibers grow linearly and are thereafter indistinguishable. This conceptual model has been given a thermodynamic formulation that describes equilibrium constants for nucleation in fundamental terms (i.e. contact energy and entropic loss and recovery). To complete the thermodynamic picture required an accurate description of the crowded milieu in which polymerization occurs. The original description invoked scaled particle theory for the homogeneous nucleation step, and assumed exact cancellation of nonideality in the heterogeneous step. Recent experiments performed in this laboratory have challenged these assumptions and we are evolving the next generation of description. We will present the results of our experiments as well as the effectiveness of more elaborate descriptions of volume exclusion. Because this description is formulated in fundamental terms, it should apply to any fibril formation process that occurs in a crowded medium.
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Details
- Title
- CROWDING IN FIBRILOGENESIS: EXPERIMENT AND THEORY
- Creators
- Ravi Jasuja - Drexel UniversityMaria Ivanova - Drexel UniversityRossen Mirchev - Drexel UniversityFrank A Ferrone - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Journal of Biosciences, v 24(1), pp 145-145
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Academic Unit
- Physics
- Other Identifier
- 991020247589704721