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Biophys. J. BioFAST: First Published October 14, 2005. doi:10.1529/biophysj.105.066969
© 2005 by the Biophysical Society.

A more recent version of this article appeared on January 1, 2006.
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BIOPHYSICAL THEORY AND MODELING

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

Sterling Paramore 1, Gary S. Ayton 1, Dina T. Mirijanian 1 and Gregory A. Voth 1*

1 University of Utah

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: voth{at}chem.utah.edu.

Submitted on May 19, 2005
Revised on August 22, 2005
Accepted on 30 September 2005


  Abstract
Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations were used to calculate the elastic properties of a spectrin repeat unit. A contiguous alpha-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.

Key Words: atomic force microscopy, force-extension, molecular dynamics, nonequilibrium, spectrin, spring constant




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Copyright © 2005 by the Biophysical Society.