beta_helix Staff Lv 1
The CASP organizers have shaken things up a bit for the upcoming CASP11 experiment!
One of the major changes is that for each prediction that we submit, we will be required to provide how confident we are with each residue in the chain.
For example, we might report for our model1 submission of a particular target (with length 181) that residues 1-80 are 100% accurate, but residues 81-85 are 50% accurate and 86-181 are 80% accurate. Then for model2 we might have completely different confidence values: residues 1-20 are 50% accurate, 21-180 are 70% accurate, and we have a confidence of 25% for the last residue, 181.
The organizers have told us that predictions with fewer than 2 different confidence values will be rejected, so this is going to add another layer of complexity to CASP!
The more exciting changes are the new initiatives in CASP11:
Modeling based on predicted contacts,
Modeling based on simulated sparse experimental data,
and
Structure prediction based on only the correct predicted contacts
The Assisted Structure Prediction Category was first introduced at the last CASP, but unfortunately Foldit was unable to participate in this new category because the puzzle load of the regular CASP10 targets was already too much.
Since this year they are expanding this category to 3 different rounds (up to 4 rounds if they able to include real cross-linking data for certain targets) we want to make sure Foldit is able to participate in these.
Our plan for CASP11 is to post Foldit puzzles for as many of these Assisted Structure Prediction targets as we can, in addition to the targets in the Refinement Category.
For the Template-Based Modeling (TBM) targets, Foldit has never been able to participate in all the TBM targets, but the organizers have added a new initiative for CASP11:
Evaluation of models based on a perfect alignment to the template.
Instead of giving you 3-5 different alignments (that may or may not be correct) in the Alignment Tool like in previous CASPs, the organizers will provide us with the perfect alignment!
Our plan for the TBM targets in CASP11 is to participate in these cases where we can give you the correct alignment.
This just leaves the Free Modeling (FM) category (where there are no templates), which is of course the most difficult category at CASP.
We are happy to announce that the best-performing FM group at CASP10, keasar, will be teaming up with Foldit at CASP11 via WeFold. You can see how well keasar performed at CASP10 in the pdf of the official rankings
The table below shows all the CASP10 groups that submitted at least one model deemed good enough by the CASP10 assessors of the FM category. At the top, with 8 different targets, is keasar followed by everyone else below (including FOLDIT and 2 of the Foldit teams):
What the keasar team is able to do very well is pick out the best server models (denoted by the corresponding green squares: the server models used by keasar for each target that they won) but the keasar team isn’t as good at improving these server models. This is why we are excited about joining forces with keasar by creating a WeFold team where keasar will provide us with their best server picks, and we’ll post those as Foldit puzzles for you to improve even further!
This is our plan for the FM targets.
We also hope to collaborate with other WeFold groups for all the non-FM puzzles that we post, to see if they are able to pick out your predictions better than we can.
In summary, our plan for CASP11 is for Foldit to participate in the Refinement Category, all the new CASP11 categories, and the FM category via WeFold. </u>
Speaking of categories, there will be a new Foldit category for CASP11 (and perhaps a sub-category for puzzles using contacts) http://fold.it/portal/categories
