A topological measurement of protein compressibility (Q2352135)

Understanding the structure-function relationship of proteins requires that one can accurately evaluate the compressibility of the protein. This paper explores the use of persistent homology to obtain a measure of the compressibility of a protein. The compressibility is closely related to the tunnels and cavities associated to a model of the molecule based on an alpha filtration of the molecule. The protein data bank supplies sufficient information that the ideas in this paper can be used to obtain a measure of the compressibility of a molecule that is in a clear linear correlation with the experimentally determined compressibility. The paper is very clearly written and provides an illuminating example of an application of persistent homology.