Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Matters Arising
  • Published:

Insufficient evidence for ageing in protein dynamics

Nature Physics volume 17, pages 773–774 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Matters Arising to this article was published on 24 June 2021

The Original Article was published on 23 November 2015

arising from X. Hu et al. Nature Physics https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3553 (2016)

In their Letter, Hu et al.1 claimed that the non-equilibrium dynamics of single protein molecules exhibits ageing over 13 decades of time, which covers the duration of the lifetime of many proteins. The Letter was the subject of a News and Views article2, and continues to attract the attention of many researchers. Here we re-examine the foundation of this claim and show that it is based on a fallacy.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Hu, X. et al. The dynamics of single protein molecules is non-equilibrium and self-similar over thirteen decades in time. Nat. Phys. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3553 (2016).

  2. Metzler, R. Forever ageing. Nat. Phys. 12, 113–114 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Papoulis, A. Probability, Random Variables, and Stochastic Processes 3rd edn (McGraw-Hill, 1991).

  4. Goychuk, I. & Pöschel, T. Finite-range viscoelastic subdiffusion in disordered systems with inclusion of inertial effects. New J. Phys. 22, 113018 (2020).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Burov, S., Metzler, R. & Barkai, E. Aging and nonergodicity beyond the Khinchin theorem. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 13228–13233 (2010).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Goychuk, I. Viscoelastic subdiffusion: generalized Langevin equation approach. Adv. Chem. Phys. 150, 187–253 (2012).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Goychuk, I. Life and death of stationary linear response in anomalous continuous time random walk dynamics. Commun. Theor. Phys. 62, 497 (2014).

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Funding of this research by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), grant GO 2052/3-2, is gratefully acknowledged. The work was supported by the Interdisciplinary Center for Nanostructured Films (IZNF), the Central Institute for Scientific Computing (ZISC) and the Interdisciplinary Center for Functional Particle Systems (FPS) at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen–Nürnberg.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Multiscale Simulation, Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen–Nuremberg, Germany

    Igor Goychuk & Thorsten Pöschel

Authors
  1. Igor Goychuk
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Thorsten Pöschel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

I.G. and T.P. equally contributed to this article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Igor Goychuk.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Physics thanks Dmitrii Makarov for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Goychuk, I., Pöschel, T. Insufficient evidence for ageing in protein dynamics. Nat. Phys. 17, 773–774 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01269-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01269-1

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing