The complex kinetics of protein folding in wide temperature ranges.

The complex protein folding kinetics in wide temperature ranges is studied through diffusive dynamics on the underlying energy landscape. The well-known kinetic chevron rollover behavior is recovered from the mean first passage time, with the U-shape dependence on temperature. The fastest folding temperature T0 is found to be smaller than the folding transition temperature Tf. We found that the fluctuations of the kinetics through the distribution of first passage time show rather universal behavior, from high-temperature exponential Poissonian kinetics to the relatively low-temperature highly non-exponential kinetics. The transition temperature is at Tk and T0 < Tk < Tf. In certain low-temperature regimes, a power law behavior at long time emerges. At very low temperatures (lower than trapping transition temperature T < T0/(4 approximately 6)), the kinetics is an exponential Poissonian process again. Copyright 2004 Biophysical Society