title: Heuristic algorithm for off-lattice protein folding problem.
abstract: Enlightened by the law of interactions among objects in the physical world, we propose a heuristic algorithm for solving the three-dimensional (3D) off-lattice protein folding problem. Based on a physical model, the problem is converted from a nonlinear constraint-satisfied problem to an unconstrained optimization problem which can be solved by the well-known gradient method. To improve the efficiency of our algorithm, a strategy was introduced to generate initial configuration. Computational results showed that this algorithm could find states with lower energy than previously proposed ground states obtained by nPERM algorithm for all chains with length ranging from 13 to 55.
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. mchen_1@163.com
authors.forename: Mao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Wen-Qi
authors.initials: WQ
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011487:Protein Conformation; D017510:Protein Folding; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins