Modeling and Simulation of Biological Self-Assembly Structures from Nanoscale Entities
2007 ◽
Vol 7
(12)
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pp. 4248-4253
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Keyword(s):
The Self
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Many natural and biological systems are formed by the process of molecular self-assembly. Molecular self-assembly is defined as the spontaneous organization of molecules under thermodynamic equilibrium conditions into structurally well defined and rather stable arrangements. In this paper, we developed a novel computational methodology to investigate the self-assembly process of simple 1-D structures representing protein monomers into long filaments, rings, pyramids, bundles, etc. Based on the preliminary results obtained, the methodology was extended to mimic the microtubule self-assembly, which occurs in all eukaryotic cells.