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Extending a Spectrin Repeat Unit. I: Linear Force-Extension Response

Center for Biophysical Modeling and Simulation and Department of Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to G. A. Voth, Tel.: 801-581-7272; E-mail: voth{at}chem.utah.edu.

Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations were used to calculate the elastic properties of a spectrin repeat unit. A contiguous -helical linker was constructed by employing periodic boundary conditions, allowing a novel scheme for evaluating the thermodynamic force as a function of extension. By measuring the force-extension response under small extensions, spectrin was observed to behave primarily as an elastic material with a spring constant of 1700 ± 100 pN/nm. The implications of this spring constant, in terms of the properties of the spectrin tetramer, are also discussed.

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