Beyond the conventional description of dynamic force spectroscopy of adhesion bonds

Dynamic force spectroscopy of single molecules is described by a model that predicts a distribution of rupture forces, the corresponding mean rupture force, and variance, which are all amenable to experimental tests. The distribution has a pronounced asymmetry, which has recently been observed experimentally. The mean rupture force follows a (lnV)2/3 dependence on the pulling velocity, V, and differs from earlier predictions. Interestingly, at low pulling velocities, a rebinding process is obtained whose signature is an intermittent behavior of the spring force, which delays the rupture. An extension to include conformational changes of the adhesion complex is proposed, which leads to the possibility of bimodal distributions of rupture forces.