Konwersatorium im. Leopolda Infelda

Molecular dynamics of proteins within coarse grained models have become auseful tool in studies of large scale systems. The talk will discuss twoapplications of such modeling that relate to single-molecule manipulation.The first is a theoretical survey of proteins' resistance to stretching anda discovery of novel mechanisms that cause it. These mechanisms aretopological in nature and may lead to characteristic forces that are largerthan in the silk of spiders.

The second application involves studies of nanoindentation processes invirus capsids and elucidates their molecular aspects by showing deviationsin behavior compared to the continuum shell model. We also demonstrate thedependence of the corresponding Young modulus on the effective averagecoordination number that characterizes interactions of a single amino acidwith other amino acids in the capsid.