2010/01/04 by Emmanuel Trizac, E. Trizac, Yaakov Levy +3 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Biochemistry #Biological system #Biology #Biophysics #Casting #Chain (unit) #Chemical physics #Chemistry #Composite material #Computer science #DNA #DNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry #Engineering #Enzyme Structure and Function #Evolutionary biology #Fly ash #Folding (DSP implementation) #Function (biology) #Materials science #Mechanical engineering #Mechanism (biology) #On the fly #Physics #Polymer #Protein Structure and Dynamics #Quantum mechanics #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.0914727107
published as Proc Natl Acad Sci (USA) 107, 2746 (2010)
arxiv created 2010/01/04 · openalex publication_date 2010/01/28 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Biomolecular folding and function are often coupled. During molecular recognition events, one of the binding partners may transiently or partially unfold, allowing more rapid access to a binding site. We describe a simple model for this fly-casting mechanism based on the capillarity approximation and polymer chain statistics. The model shows that fly casting is most effective when the protein unfolding barrier is small and the part of the chain which extends toward the target is relatively rigid. These features are often seen in known examples of fly casting in protein-DNA binding. Simulations of protein-DNA binding based on well-funneled native-topology models with electrostatic forces confirm the trends of the analytical theory.