▪ Abstract The energy landscape theory of protein folding is a statistical description of a
protein's potential surface. It assumes that folding occurs through organizing an ensemble of …

How fast can a protein possibly fold? This question has stimulated experimentalists to seek
fast folding proteins and to engineer them to fold even faster. Proteins folding at or near the …

Theoretical studies have suggested relationships between the size, stability and topology of
a protein fold and the rate and mechanisms by which it is achieved. The recent …

The mechanism of ligand binding coupled to conformational changes in macromolecules
has recently attracted considerable interest. The 2 limiting cases are the “induced fit” …

Many small, monomeric proteins fold with simple two-state kinetics and show wide variation
in folding rates, from microseconds to seconds. Thus, stable intermediates are not a …

Preparation of biological macromolecules in the pure state requires that cells be disrupted,
releasing and mixing the contents. Only the most stable and highly structured molecules can …

Guided by the recent success of empirical model predicting the folding rates of small two‐
state folding proteins from the relative contact order (CO) of their native structures, by a …

▪ Abstract This review describes how kinetic experiments using techniques with dramatically
improved time resolution have contributed to understanding mechanisms in protein folding …

▪ Abstract In order to solve the immensely difficult protein-folding problem, it will be
necessary to characterize the barriers that slow folding and the intermediate structures that …

I attempt to reconcile apparently conflicting factors and mechanisms that have been
proposed to determine the rate constant for two-state folding of small proteins, on the basis …