Abstract
.The dependence of the unfolding pathway of proteins on the pulling speed is investigated. This is done by introducing a simple one-dimensional chain comprising N units, with different characteristic bistable free energies. These units represent either each of the modules in a modular protein or each of the intermediate ‘unfoldons’ in a protein domain, which can be either folded or unfolded. The system is pulled by applying a force to the last unit of the chain, and the units unravel following a preferred sequence. We show that the unfolding sequence strongly depends on the pulling velocity . In the simplest situation, there appears a critical pulling speed : for pulling speeds , the weakest unit unfolds first, whereas for it is the pulled unit that unfolds first. By means of a perturbative expansion, we find quite an accurate expression for this critical velocity.
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