Theory 08/Molecular/Protein folding
Folding Nucleus Is Contact Order
The claim
The size of the folding nucleus is set by the ratio of contact order to chain length, so proteins with many long-range contacts nucleate a larger core.
01Mechanism
A nucleus must bring together residues that are distant in sequence; higher contact order requires more of the chain to be organised at once.
02Prediction
Nucleus size should track the ratio.
03Refutation
Nucleus size tracking chain length alone would remove topology.