FIGURE 1.

Two pairs of residues, Gly¹⁷² and Ser²²⁵ in the α-chain (a), and Tyr²⁷⁴ in the α-chain and Leu²⁵⁸ in the β-chain (b) in the x-ray crystal structure of integrin demonstrate the difference between the two approaches used to generate an elastic network model. The C_α atoms are colored in black, other atoms in gray. The backbone is represented by a white tube. In the conventional approach, the two residues in both cases are connected by a spring when the cutoff length, R_c, is >7.5 Å. In our approach, the residues in b are connected, whereas those in a are not, when the cutoff length, r_c, satisfies 3.3 < r_c < 7.0.