Nymeyer H, García A E, Onuchic J N
Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0319, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 May 26;95(11):5921-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.95.11.5921.
A full quantitative understanding of the protein folding problem is now becoming possible with the help of the energy landscape theory and the protein folding funnel concept. Good folding sequences have a landscape that resembles a rough funnel where the energy bias towards the native state is larger than its ruggedness. Such a landscape leads not only to fast folding and stable native conformations but, more importantly, to sequences that are robust to variations in the protein environment and to sequence mutations. In this paper, an off-lattice model of sequences that fold into a beta-barrel native structure is used to describe a framework that can quantitatively distinguish good and bad folders. The two sequences analyzed have the same native structure, but one of them is minimally frustrated whereas the other one exhibits a high degree of frustration.
借助能量景观理论和蛋白质折叠漏斗概念,现在有可能对蛋白质折叠问题进行全面的定量理解。良好的折叠序列具有类似于粗糙漏斗的景观,其中向天然状态的能量偏向大于其崎岖程度。这样的景观不仅导致快速折叠和稳定的天然构象,更重要的是,导致对蛋白质环境变化和序列突变具有鲁棒性的序列。在本文中,使用折叠成β-桶天然结构的序列的非晶格模型来描述一个可以定量区分好折叠序列和坏折叠序列的框架。分析的两个序列具有相同的天然结构,但其中一个几乎没有受挫,而另一个则表现出高度的受挫。