We are attempting to improve our previously published theoretical models of the effect of macromolecular crowding upon protein associations and isomerizations. Current work focuses on the statistical-thermodynamic formulation of a potential of average force acting between two """"""""tracer"""""""" hard particles in a fluid containing an arbitary volume fraction of """"""""crowder"""""""" hard particles. This is not an analytically soluble problem, and we are trying a variety of approximate techniques in order to arrive at a robust solution that is not critically dependent upon the nature of the approximations made in the formulation of the model. We plan to compare the results of the theoretical models with the results of Monte Carlo and/or molecular dynamics simulation.
| Minton, Allen P (2007) The effective hard particle model provides a simple, robust, and broadly applicable description of nonideal behavior in concentrated solutions of bovine serum albumin and other nonassociating proteins. J Pharm Sci 96:3466-9 |
| Monterroso, Begona; Minton, Allen P (2007) Effect of high concentration of inert cosolutes on the refolding of an enzyme: carbonic anhydrase B in sucrose and ficoll 70. J Biol Chem 282:33452-8 |
