title: Hydrophobic collapse in (in silico) protein folding.
abstract: A model of hydrophobic collapse, which is treated as the driving force for protein folding, is presented. This model is the superposition of three models commonly used in protein structure prediction: (1) 'oil-drop' model introduced by Kauzmann, (2) a lattice model introduced to decrease the number of degrees of freedom for structural changes and (3) a model of the formation of hydrophobic core as a key feature in driving the folding of proteins. These three models together helped to develop the idea of a fuzzy-oil-drop as a model for an external force field of hydrophobic character mimicking the hydrophobicity-differentiated environment for hydrophobic collapse. All amino acids in the polypeptide interact pair-wise during the folding process (energy minimization procedure) and interact with the external hydrophobic force field defined by a three-dimensional Gaussian function. The value of the Gaussian function usually interpreted as a probability distribution is treated as a normalized hydrophobicity distribution, with its maximum in the center of the ellipsoid and decreasing proportionally with the distance versus the center. The fuzzy-oil-drop is elastic and changes its shape and size during the simulated folding procedure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics and Telemedicine, Collegium Medicum, Jagiellonian University, Kopernika 17, 31-501 Krakow, Poland.
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brylinski
authors.forename: Leszek
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Konieczny
authors.forename: Irena
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Roterman
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000737:chemistry; D019295:Computational Biology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D008024:Ligands; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D009821:Oils / Q000737:chemistry; D010316:Particle Size; D017510:Protein Folding; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D008024:Ligands; D009821:Oils; D011506:Proteins