Phys. Rev. E 65, 061910 (2002) [4 pages]Small-world view of the amino acids that play a key role in protein foldingReceived 25 May 2001; revised 21 March 2002; published 25 June 2002 We use geometrical considerations to provide a different perspective on the fact that a few selected amino acids, the so-called “key residues,” act as nucleation centers for protein folding. By constructing graphs corresponding to protein structures we show that they have the “small-world” feature of having a limited set of vertices with large connectivity. These vertices correspond to the key residues that play the role of “hubs” in the network of interactions that stabilize the structure of the transition state. © 2002 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevE.65.061910
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevE.65.061910
PACS:
87.15.By, 64.60.Cn, 87.10.+e
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