Review Article of possible interest to some of you (subscription required):
Annual Review of Biophysics Vol. 37: 289-316 (Volume publication date June 2008) (doi:10.1146/annurev.biophys.37.092707.153558) The Protein Folding Problem Ken A. Dill Et Al http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.biophys.37.092707.153558 The “protein folding problem” consists of three closely related puzzles: (a) What is the folding code? (b) What is the folding mechanism? (c) Can we predict the native structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence? Once regarded as a grand challenge, protein folding has seen great progress in recent years. Now, foldable proteins and nonbiological polymers are being designed routinely and moving toward successful applications. The structures of small proteins are now often well predicted by computer methods. And, there is now a testable explanation for how a protein can fold so quickly: A protein solves its large global optimization problem as a series of smaller local optimization problems, growing and assembling the native structure from peptide fragments, local structures first. Cheers, Günther ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
