Researchers explore DNA folding, cellular packing with supercomputer simulations
University Of Texas At Austin
Sequence-specific, twist-induced, kinked elastic configurations, generated by molecular dynamics simulations on supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, help explain how long strands of DNA can fit in small spaces. We show that a broad ensemble of polymer configurations is consistent with the structural data, he and collaborator Christopher Myers, also of University of Texas Medical Branch, wrote. B. Montgomery Pettitt and his research group at the University of Texas Medical Branch use the Stampede and Lonestar5 supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center to explore the dynamics of protein folding in solution. More than 60 percent of proteins involved in cell signaling (molecular processes that take signals from outside the cell or across cells that tell the cell what behaviors to turn on and off in response) have disordered domains. Credit: Christopher G. Myers, B. Montgomery Pettitt, University of Texas Medical Branch The folding of the nuclear transcription factor signaling domain is not brought about by hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic effects, like most protein molecules, according to Pettitt.