title: New method for determining size of critical nucleus of fibril formation of polypeptide chains.
abstract: A new method for determining the size of critical nucleus of fibril formation of polypeptide chains is proposed. Based on the hypothesis that the fibril grows by addition of a nascent peptide to the preformed template, the nucleus size N(c) is defined as the number of forming template peptides above which the time to add a new monomer becomes independent of the template size. Using lattice models one can show that our method and the standard method which is based on calculation of the free energy, provide the same result for N(c).
authors.affiliation: Saigon Institute for Computational Science and Technology, 6 Quarter, Linh Trung Ward, Thu Duc District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
authors.forename: Nguyen Truong
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Co
authors.forename: Mai Suan
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D008958:Models, Molecular; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D017510:Protein Folding; D055503:Protein Multimerization; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D013696:Temperature; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides