Conformational Diffusion and Helix Formation Kinetics

The time, temperature, and sequence dependences of helix formation kinetics of fully atomistic peptide models in explicit solvent are described quantitatively by a diffusive search within the coil state with barrierless transitions into the helical state. Conformational diffusion leads to nonexponential kinetics and jump-width dependences in temperature jump experiments.

@article{hummer2000conformational,
  title   = {Conformational Diffusion and Helix Formation Kinetics},
  author  = {Hummer, Gerhard and Garc{\'\i}a, Angel E. and Garde, Shekhar},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. Lett.},
  volume  = {85},
  number  = {12},
  pages   = {2637--2640},
  year    = {2000},
  doi     = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.2637}
}