Friction of F-actin knots.

Kirchner, Helmut O; Neukirch, Sebastien · J Mech Behav Biomed Mater · 2010

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We use the existing data of force-extension experiments on F-actin molecules tied into knots to compute a value of 0.15 for the static friction coefficient for contact between different parts of the same molecule with itself. This estimate for protein-protein friction is relevant for the stabilization of the 273 known proteins with knots, one percent of the structures deposited in the Protein Data Bank.

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