Self-affine analysis of protein energy

Abstract

We study the time series of the total energy of polypeptides and proteins. These time series were generated by molecular dynamics methods and analyzed by applying detrended fluctuation analysis to estimate the long-range power-law correlation, i.e. to measure scaling exponents α. Such exponents were calculated for all systems and their values follow environment conditions, i.e., they are temperature dependent and also, in a continuum medium approach, vary according to the dielectric constants (we simulated = 2 and = 80). The procedure was applied to investigate polyalanines, and other realistic models of proteins (Insect Defensin A and Hemoglobin). The present findings exhibit results that are consistent with previous ones obtained by other methodologies.