Mechanical stability of proteins

摘要

A number of experiments and experimentally based simulations showed that β-proteins are mechanically more stable than a-proteins. However, the theory that might explain this evidence is still lacking. In this paper we have developed a simple elastic theory, which allows to estimate critical forces for stretching both kinds of proteins. It has been shown that unfolding of _-proteins does really require notably higher forces as compared to the stretching of a-proteins.