Kinetic analysis of protein folding lattice models

Abstract

Based on two-dimensional square lattice models of proteins, the relation between folding time and temperature is studied by Monte Carlo simulation. The results can be represented by a kinetic model with three states - random coil, molten globule, and native state. The folding process is composed of nonspecific collapse and final searching for the native state. At high temperature, it is easy to escape from local traps in the folding process. With decreasing temperature, because of the trapping in local traps, the final searching speed decreases. Then the folding shows chevron rollover. Through the analysis of the fitted parameters of the kinetic model, it is found that the main difference between the energy landscapes of the HP model and the Go model is that the number of local minima of the Go model is less than that of the HP model.