A Monte Carlo study of properties of protein-like heteropolymers

The structure of a polypeptide model by means of the Monte Carlo method has been studied. The model chains consisting of two kinds of residues (hydrophobic and hydrophilic) were confined on the (3 1 0) hybrid lattice. The residues interacted with the long-range contact potential. The short-range potential was also used by introducing the preferences of conformations corresponding to the helical structure. Simulations of the coil-to-globule collapse have been done by an annealing process starting from high-temperature structures and then gradual cooling of the system. It has been found that in a case of a helical pattern –HHPPHPP– the collapsed chains consisted of longer helical fragments. The results show the influence of the potentials used in a model on final static and dynamic properties of molecules.