Phase diagram of an imprinted copolymer in a random external field

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Abstract
Recently, a procedure to create renaturable heteropolymers, 'imprinting', has been proposed and examined theoretically. The significance of imprinting is that certain aspects of a heteropolymer's native conformation may be controlled during the synthesis stage. We examine this possibility theoretically by introducing an external field during the synthesis and renaturation stages of the model. We find that imprinting in an external field leads to protein-like heteropolymers which can renature to native conformations which are affected by the field, even in the absence of the field during renaturation. We conclude, by commenting on the relevance of these results to the biological and prebiological creation of biopolymers, such as proteins, influenced by the analogues to our external field, such as antigens or ligands.

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