The work in this thesis focuses on the study of three main aspects of proteins, viz, Protein
structure, stability, and dynamics. Chapter 1 is a general introduction to the topics studied in …

A major bottleneck in protein structure prediction is the selection of correct models from a
pool of decoys. Relative activities of ∼1,200 individual single-site mutants in a saturation …

Mutations provide the variation that drives evolution, yet their effects on fitness remain poorly
understood. Here we explore how mutations in the essential enzyme adenylate kinase (Adk…

Enzymes play a vital role in life processes; they control chemical reactions and allow functional
cycles to be synchronized. Many enzymes harness large-scale motions of their domains …

The signal peptide plays a key role in targeting and membrane insertion of secretory and
membrane proteins in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In E. coli, recombinant proteins can be …

When incorporated into a polypeptide chain, proline (Pro) differs from all other naturally
occurring amino acid residues in two important respects. The φ dihedral angle of Pro is …

Despite considerable efforts, no physical mechanism has been shown to explain N-terminal
codon bias in prokaryotic genomes. Using a systematic study of synonymous substitutions in …

Monday, February 13, 2017 167a aggregation phenomena. Amorphous aggregation of the g-crystallins
in the eye lens causes a widespread disease of aging, cataract. We combined …

Proteins are only moderately stable. It has long been debated whether this narrow range of
stabilities is solely a result of neutral drift toward lower stability or purifying selection against …

Mutations in a microbial population can increase the frequency of a genotype not only by
increasing its exponential growth rate, but also by decreasing its lag time or adjusting the yield (…