A schematic of our computational model is shown in Figure . The backbone consists of N bb beads; each backbone bead carries one side chain consisting of N sc beads. These beads experience a potential U = U s + U ev + U b that describes the intramolecular interactions present in the system; bead connectivity U s , bead excluded volume U ev , and a bending potential U b . The connectivities between the beads were implemented via finitely extensible nonlinear elastic (FENE) spring forces derived from the potential