Force induced unfolding of bio-polymers in a cellular environment: A model study

TL;DR

This study models how molecular crowding and confinement in cells affect the force-induced unfolding of bio-polymers, revealing significant differences in behavior due to cellular environment effects.

Contribution

It introduces a correlated disorder model to simulate cellular crowding effects on polymer unfolding, advancing understanding of intracellular protein mechanics.

Findings

Force-extension behavior differs with molecular crowding

Correlated disorder significantly impacts unfolding dynamics

Cellular environment alters polymer response to force

Abstract

Effect of molecular crowding and confinement experienced by protein in the cell during unfolding has been studied by modeling a linear polymer chain on a percolation cluster. It is known that internal structure of the cell changes in time, however, they do not change significantly from their initial structure. In order to model this we introduce the correlation among the different disorder realizations. It was shown that the force-extension behavior for correlated disorder in both constant force ensemble (CFE) and constant distance ensemble (CDE) is significantly different than the one obtained in absence of molecular crowding.