Structural Susceptibilities in Toy Models of Proteins

Abstract

New definitions of the structural susceptibilities based on the fluctuations of distances to the native state of toy protein models are proposed. The calculation of such susceptibilities does not require the basin of native state and the folding temperature can be defined from their peak if the native conformation is compact. The number of peaks in the derivatives of distances to the native state with respect to temperature, when plotted versus temperature, may serve as a criterion for foldability. The thermodynamics quantities are obtained by Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations.