Are many-body effects important in protein folding?

In this article we investigate the importance of many-body and nonclassical effects, such as polarization and charge transfer, on the folding of the betanova protein. Our calculations show that these effects are crucial in stabilization of the system. Moreover, both polarization and charge transfer significantly alter the charge distribution of the system. Our detailed study shows that these fluctuations in charge are solely dependent on the local environment and not on the overall fold of the protein. Moreover, the contributions of polarization and charge transfer are roughly constant during the protein folding process. This means that the folding driving force is largely determined by the electrostatic energy. Our findings indicate that the folding of betanova can be accurately described by effective two-body potentials, despite the absence of explicit polarization and charge transfer in these models.