Helix-coil transition in biopolymers with multicomponent heterogeneity of energy and number of conformations

Abstract

We consider the theory of helix-coil transition in heteropolymeric biopolymers with an arbitrary number of components in cases of heterogeneity with respect to both energy and number of conformations. The theory is based on the Generalized Model of Polypeptide Chain (GMPC) with employing the constrained annealing method. Expression for the free energy of heteropolymer is derived using averaged transfer-matrix of homopolymer GMPC with redefined energy and conformation parameters. We obtain an algorithm of calculation of the melting curve of a heteropolymeric system and compare that with the homopolymeric curve. We show that bimodal heterogeneity determines qualitatively the basic properties of melting of a random heteropolymer. We also show that heterogeneity with respect to energy and heterogeneity with respect to number of conformations provide essentially the same characteristics of melting curves.