Figure 9.

Comparison of the nucleation pathways. (A) Nucleation pathway and rate constants determined by Sept and McCammon (9). (B) Our measurements of rate constants from fitting the model to the concentrations of polymer, monomer, and ends versus time (Fig. 2) using the same pathway as in (A). (C) Our hypothesized nucleation pathway with a monomer equilibrium between twisted-closed (orange) and flattened-opened (yellow) conformations. The pathway and rate constants indicated reflect those from a model assuming dimer formation requires one salt-induced flattened-open monomer; however, only twisted-closed monomer conformations participate in the other reactions (Fig. 3, 1M^∗: Salt). To see the figure in color, go online.