The protein folding problem: when will it be solved?
The protein folding problem can be viewed as three different problems: defining the thermodynamic folding code; devising a good computational structure prediction algorithm; and answering Levinthal's question regarding the kinetic mechanism of how proteins can fold so quickly. Once regarded as a grand challenge, protein folding has seen much progress in recent years. Folding codes are now being used to successfully design proteins and non-biological foldable polymers; aided by the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Structure Prediction (CASP) competition, protein structure prediction has now become quite good. Even the once-challenging Levinthal puzzle now seems to have an answer--a protein can avoid searching irrelevant conformations and fold quickly by making local independent decisions first, followed by non-local global decisions later.
Dill
Ken A
KA
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. dill@maxwell.ucsf.edu
Ozkan
S Banu
SB
Weikl
Thomas R
TR
Chodera
John D
JD
Voelz
Vincent A
VA
D000818:Animals; D001671:Biochemistry / Q000639:trends*; D001703:Biophysics / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000639:trends; D017510:Protein Folding; D011506:Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*
D011506:Proteins