New Influenza Puzzle

Started by beta_helix

beta_helix Staff Lv 1

Thank you for participating in our new influenza puzzle: http://fold.it/portal/node/992964 .

Some players may notice that this puzzle is similar to previously posted ones, with a significant difference: two helices have been introduced to flank the designable loop. Previously, we received many interesting solutions from the Foldit community which made strong biochemical interactions with the influenza target, but unfortunately, some of these loops were ending in directions which made them difficult to superimpose onto proteins. These flanking helices constrain the designed loops so that they point in directions which improve subsequent superpositioning. However, despite these constraints, there is still a lot of room to explore, so feel free to get creative!

We will been having a Scientist Chat later today with Aaron (at 21:30 GMT) to answer any questions about this puzzle. If you are unable to make it then, please post any questions here so we can answer them during today's chat: http://fold.it/portal/node/992967 . We will post the chat transcript here: http://fold.it/portal/chats

brow42 Lv 1

Please clarify what you mean by scaffolding (which was in the puzzle description)….are these helices supposed to fit onto the flu molecule to hold position, or fold back behind the active site loops to hold it's shape? I can imagine just folding the helices in parallel behind the loops, but this isn't going to help with positioning at all since they are just floating in space.