Critical aspects of hierarchical protein folding

TL;DR

This paper explores the critical point in hierarchical protein folding transitions, analyzing its universality class and highlighting its qualitative differences from other models, which enhances understanding of protein folding mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a hierarchical Hamiltonian model to study the critical point in protein folding and identifies its unique universality class.

Findings

First order folding transitions end in a critical point.

The universality class of this critical point differs from known models.

Hierarchical Hamiltonian effectively captures critical behavior in protein folding.

Abstract

We argue that the first order folding transitions of proteins observed at physiological chemical conditions end in a critical point for a given temperature and chemical potential of the surrounding water. We investigate this critical point using a hierarchical Hamiltonian and determine its universality class. This class differs qualitatively from those of other known models.