Heteropolymer Sequence Design and Preferential Solvation of Hydrophilic Monomers: One More Application of Random Energy Model

TL;DR

This paper uses the random energy model to analyze how surface interactions and solvation influence the design and properties of heteropolymer sequences, revealing conditions that enhance design quality.

Contribution

It applies the random energy model to study surface effects and solvation in heteropolymer sequence design, providing insights into the impact of design constraints and solvation on sequence space.

Findings

Solvation effects can improve sequence design quality under certain conditions.

Comparison of freezing transitions reveals differences between random and designed sequences.

Sequence space entropy depends on design constraints and solvation considerations.

Abstract

In this paper, we study the role of surface of the globule and the role of interactions with the solvent for designed sequence heteropolymers using random energy model (REM). We investigate the ground state energy and surface monomer composition distribution. By comparing the freezing transition in random and designed sequence heteropolymers, we discuss the effects of design. Based on our results, we are able to show under which conditions solvation effect improves the quality of sequence design. Finally, we study sequence space entropy and discuss the number of available sequences as a function of imposed requirements for the design quality.