Verification of the Crooks fluctuation theorem and recovery of RNA folding free energies.

ABSTRACT: Atomic force microscopes and optical tweezers are widely used to probe the mechanical properties of individual molecules and molecular interactions, by exerting mechanical forces that induce transitions such as unfolding or dissociation. These transitions often occur under nonequilibrium conditions and are associated with hysteresis effects-features usually taken to preclude the extraction of equilibrium information from the experimental data. But fluctuation theorems allow us to relate the work along nonequilibrium trajectories to thermodynamic free-energy differences. They have been shown to be applicable to single-molecule force measurements and have already provided information on the folding free energy of a RNA hairpin. Here we show that the Crooks fluctuation theorem can be used to

SUBMITTER: Collin D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1752236 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature