2005/06/01 by J. C. Phillips, Phillips, J. C.
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Biocrusts and Microbial Ecology #Cellular Mechanics and Interactions #Enzyme Structure and Function #FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0506036
arxiv created 2005/06/01 · openalex publication_date 2005/06/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Quantitative topological analogies between the flexibilities of optimized inorganic glasses, small biological molecules, and proteins suggest that mean field estimates of internal stress are useful in identifying mechanisms supporting living materials and their enzymatic products. These analogies bode well for emerging minimalist flexibility models of protein dynamics. Application to trehalose, the optimal bioprotective material, leads to a remarkably simple mechanical model, closely parallel to mechanical effects observed in sandwich-like proteins.