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21.7: Forces Guiding Binding

  • Page ID
    294365
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    Electrostatics

    • Electrostatics play a role at long and short range
      • Long-range nonspecific interactions accelerate diffusive encounter
      • Short range guides specific contacts
    • Electrostatic complementarity
    • Electrostatic steering
    • van der Waals, π-π stacking

    clipboard_ee3bc0b9d1810029ad33b938f66824ac2.pngclipboard_ec44ad0311c9f42c120cf00936a2b60bd.png

    clipboard_e30bfe8b523d480867a8ffd5345c3c258.png

    Shape and Geometry

    • Shape complementarity
    • Orientational registry
    • Folding
    • Anchoring residues

    Hydrogen Bonding

    • Short range
    • Cross over from electrostatic to more charge transfer with strong HBs (like DNA, protein–DNA binding)
    • Important in specificity

    clipboard_ea53784b3a522c87f18c95a3d1e67a575.png

    Solvation/Desolvation

    • To bind, a ligand needs to desolvate the active site
    • Bimolecular contacts will displace water
    • Water often intimate binding participant (crystallographic waters)
    • Hydrophobic patches
    • Charge reconfiguration in electrolyte solutions at binding interface
    • Electrostatic forces from water

    clipboard_eb6d0b196a88301c40daf61c7a5693085.png

    Depletion Forces

    • Entropic effect
    • Fluctuations that lead to an imbalance of forces that drives particles together
      • Crowding/Caging

    clipboard_e3fc2b2228a11e6fdde0620813ba8062a.png

    • Hydrophobicity
      • Dewetting and Interfacial Fluctuations
    clipboard_e1ba06701a6afe28e3b52fbe209c74d86.png
    Folding/Conformational Change
    • Disorder increases hydrodynamic volume
    • Coupled folding and binding
      • Fly-casting mechanism
        • Partially unfolded partners
        • Long-range non-native interaction
        • Gradual decrease in free energy
    clipboard_e3d4d3c7e60f3a7cfd886e472d6d36b0c.png

    This page titled 21.7: Forces Guiding Binding is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Andrei Tokmakoff via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.