Computational studies of viral protein nano-actuators

Dynamic and kinematic analyses are performed to predict the performance of a new nanoscale biomolecular motor: The Viral Protein Linear (VPL) Motor. The motor is based on a conformational change observed in a family of viral envelope proteins when subjected to a changing pH enivronment. The conformational change produces a motion of about 10 nm, making the VPL a basic linear actuator which can be further interfaced with other organic/inorganic nanoscale components such as DNA actuators and carbon nanotubes. This paper presents the principle of operation of the VPL motor, the development of dynamic and kinematic models to study their performance, and preliminary results obtained from the developed computational tools.