PNNL

Abstract

Protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions play critical roles in biological functions of living cells, such as cell signaling, receptor-ligand activation, cellular metabolism, DNA damage recognition and repair, gene expression, replication, etc. These protein interactions often involve complex mechanisms and inhomogeneous dynamics with significant conformational changes. Protein-protein, protein-ligand, and protein-DNA interactions are often intrinsically single-molecule processes at an induction stage associated with the initiation of crucial early eents in living cells. For example, cell-signaling processes are often initiated through a few copies of protein-interaction complexes, being amplified along the signaling pathway.