Random heteropolymer adsorption on disordered multifunctional surfaces: Effect of specific intersegment interactions

Journal Article · Thu Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1998 · Journal of Chemical Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.477285· OSTI ID:298589

Srebnik, S ^[1]; Chakraborty, A K ^[2]; Bratko, D ^[1]

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1. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720 (United States)
2. Department of Chemical Engineering and Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720 (United States)

Biopolymers adsorb on cell and virus surfaces with great specificity. Recently, theoretical and computational studies have inquired as to whether there are any universal design strategies that nature employs in order to affect such recognition. Specifically, the efficacy of multifunctionality and quenched disorder as essential design strategies has been explored. It has been found that when random heteropolymers interact with disordered multifunctional surfaces, a sharp transition from weak to strong adsorption occurs when the statistics characterizing the sequence and surface site distributions are related in a special way. The aforementioned studies consider the intersegment interactions to be much weaker than the surface site interactions. In this work we use nondynamic ensemble growth Monte Carlo simulations to study the effect of the competition between frustrating intersegment and segment{endash}surface interactions. We find that as the intersegment interactions become stronger, the transition from weak to strong adsorption occurs at higher surface disorder strengths. This trend is reversed beyond a threshold strength of the intersegment interactions because interactions with the surface are no longer able to {open_quotes}unravel{close_quotes} the dominant conformations favored by the intersegment interactions. {copyright} {ital 1998 American Institute of Physics.}

• OSTI ID: 298589
• Journal Information: Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Chemical Physics Journal Issue: 15 Vol. 109; ISSN JCPSA6; ISSN 0021-9606
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

40 CHEMISTRY
ADSORPTION
BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS
CONFORMATIONAL CHANGES
MONTE CARLO METHOD
POLYMERS
PROTEINS