Session H42 - Undergraduate Student Poster Session.
POSTER session, Tuesday evening, March 18
Exhibit Hall D, Conv. Center
One of the central unresolved issues in molecular biophysics is the relationship between protein structure and protein function. It has been established that fluctuations in structure (i.e., protein dynamics) play a role in protein function, but the nature of these motions and the time scales over which they occur are generally unknown. We describe a simple three-well kinetic model for protein-ligand interactions in which the presence of thermal noise enhances the effect of a weak periodic perturbation applied to the system. This stochastic resonance model can be used to understand the results of experiments that probe the binding of small ligands to heme proteins with the application of ac pressure; such experiments yield information as to the relevant time scales of functionally important protein motions.