Fig. 9. Energy landscape, schematic of model elements, and potential energy for predicted scenarios.

(A) Schematic of energy landscape showing known and possible routes of conformational change in response to the environment. Dotted lines indicate uniform path of discrete jumps between minimum energy states, and solid lines indicate ensemble behavior. (B) Depiction of the elements of the model used. The resilin molecule is represented as a long chain of nodes linked by rigid segments. A node can represent a single amino acid or a cluster of amino acids. Nodes interact with each other via van der Waals and electrostatic forces. The crowder molecule is represented as a uniform sphere that interacts with the resilin nodes via van der Waals forces. (C) Potential energy between two nodes of a segment for three scenarios: (1) pristine state with no crowders, (2) extended state with few crowders, and (3) contracted state with many crowders.