13 research outputs found
Solitons on H-bonds in proteins
A model for soliton dynamics on a hydrogen-bond network in helical proteins
is proposed. It employs in three dimensions the formalism of fully integrable
Toda lattices which admits phonons as well as solitons along the hydrogen-bonds
of the helices. A simulation of the three dimensional Toda lattice system shows
that the solitons are spontaneously created and are stable and moving along the
helix axis. A perturbation on one of the three H-bond lines forms solitons on
the other H-bonds as well. The robust solitary wave may explain very long-lived
modes in the frequency range of 100 cm which are found in recent X-ray
laser experiments. The dynamics parameters of the Toda lattice are in
accordance with the usual Lennard-Jones parameters used for realistic H-bond
potentials in proteins.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure