Investigation of Algorithms for Analyzing Protein Internal Motion From Viewpoint of Robot Kinematics

We investigate various algorithms for analyzing the characteristics of the internal motion of proteins based on the analogies between their kinematic structures and robotic mechanisms. First, we introduce an artificial simple protein model, planar main chain (PMC), composed of a planar serial link mechanism to investigate the algorithms. Then, we develop algorithms for analyzing the conformational fluctuations by applying the manipulability analysis of robot manipulators and control strategies for redundant manipulators. Next, we develop algorithms for analyzing the conformational deformation caused by the external forces and to evaluate the compliances of the specified parts of proteins. Finally, we show that the proposed algorithms developed by using PMC models are applicable for the three dimensional main chain structures of real proteins, and may be used to analyze their characteristics of the internal motion. We also reveal some preliminary simulation results of the analysis of a real protein.