How Do Configurational and Conformational Entropy Differ in Protein Folding?

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
2 replies · 2K views
EFech
Messages
2
Reaction score
2
TL;DR
What is the difference between CONFIGURATION and CONFORMATIONAL entropy in protein folding?
I have been reading about protein thermodynamics and found different types and models for entropy calculation before and after protein folding. I understand Vibrational, conformational, configurational entropy are some of the most studied "types" of protein folding entropy.

My questions is, What is the difference between Configurational and Conformational entropy in protein folding?

According to Doig & Sternberg (1995) Configurational entropy is defined as:
ΔSconfig=ΔSconf+ΔSvib
Although it is most certainly not a linear sum, I understand from this formulation the configurational entropy as a parameter determined by conformational and vibrational entropy in some way.
Is this conceptualization of configurational entropy still valid, or is it incorrect?

I am grateful for your guidance and knowledge, as I keep getting confused by the use of both terms in the literature.
 
Last edited:
Chemistry news on Phys.org
This appears to me to be a matter of "splitting hairs on cue balls;" statistical mechanics may have evolved sufficiently since I was in grad school to make such distinctions, but...
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: jim mcnamara
So I understand there is no real need for distinguishing between both?. If so, we can just talk about a configurational or conformational as synonyms?. I understand it study is still relevant for the thermodynamics of protein, in addition to the kinematic study.