Lessons from equilibrium statistical physics regarding the assembly of protein complexes

Synopsis

Pablo Sartori and Stanislas Leibler
PNAS January 7, 2020 117 (1) 114-120
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911028117

In order to form functional protein complexes, proteins need to be able to differentiate and bind to specific components out a mixture of different proteins within a cell. The theory in which this occurs is still largely unexplained. The authors of this paper make use of a self-assembly Monte-Carlo simulation to justify theoretical constraints on functional protein assembly. They argue that the need for reliable assembly of protein complexes enforces a strict constraint on the fundamental features of protein complexes and binding.  

In the presentation, I will showcase the model, and their findings, as well as provide the logical reasoning behind their constraints on self-assembly protein complexes.