Thermophilic proteins -- extracted from organisms that live at high temperature -- can withstand temperatures much higher than their mesophilic counterparts, obtained from organisms that live near room temperature. This extreme thermal tolerance in thermophilic proteins is particularly intriguing given they share high structural and sequence similarity with their mesophilic homologues. We try to address this puzzle by tracing back to one of the early (almost thirty years ago) work of Muthukumar. Extension of this elegant theory reveals how evolution may have used subtle tricks with charge patterning in the protein sequence to gain such high temperature resilience. The theory also holds promise to another rapidly developing area of protein science, trying to model the Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDP).

Polymer physics to understand protein evolution under extreme temperature

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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