Presenter: Tsvi Tlusty, Ph.D., Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology
Topic: Protein: the physics of amorphous evolving matter
Protein is a matter of dual nature. As a physical object, a protein molecule is a folded chain of amino acids with diverse biochemistry. But it is also a point along an evolutionary trajectory determined by the function performed by the protein within a hierarchy of interwoven interaction networks of the cell, the organism, and the population. A physical theory of proteins, therefore, needs to unify both aspects, the biophysical and the evolutionary. Specifically, it should provide a model of how the DNA gene is mapped into the functional phenotype of the protein. A physical approach to the protein problem will be described, focusing on a mechanical framework that treats proteins as evolvable condensed matter: Mutations introduce localized perturbations in the gene, which are translated to localized perturbations in the protein matter. A natural tool to examine how mutations shape the phenotype are Green’s functions. They map the evolutionary linkage among mutations in the gene(termed epistasis) to cooperative physical interactions among the amino acids in the protein. The mechanistic view can be applied to examine basic questions of protein evolution and design.
[1] Eckmann et al., Proteins: The physics of amorphous evolving matter, Rev Mod. Phys 2019.
[2] Eckmann et al., Dimensional Reduction in Complex LivingSystems: Where, Why, and How
(arXiv:2103.02436)
Living Matter Theory Group
Center for Soft and Living Matter, Institute for Basic Science, Ulsan, Korea
Our group develops physical theories and numerical models to explore basic questions in soft and living matter, particularly the emergence of collective phenomena and multi-scale architecture. Recent work encompasses the physics of proteins, dynamics of enzymes, memory cascades, development, topological soft matter, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics (http://www.sns.ias.edu/~tlusty/research.html).
