beta_helix Staff Lv 1
We are very excited and impressed with the models everyone was able to make for the CO2 Fixation enzyme puzzle! While we do not know if there is a right answer we saw a lot of your answers converge on a single confirmation that suggests to us that there is an actual energy minima and you guys found it. In addition the molecular details of this Foldit predicted conformation really make sense with the chemistry occurring in the active site.
We are currently planning on taking the models that you generated and using them as a starting point for evolving a new an improved enzyme. Before your solutions it was very difficult to know which of the 10 amino acids were pointing towards the active site, making it impossible to try the combinatorial set of mutations using standard evolutionary techniques with this protein (2e11 possibilities if we were doing it completely at random). Using these models we can make directed mutations and narrow it down to roughly 300 proteins which we can test. We will post more on the results that came from your modeling efforts as we generate them.
Thanks and keep up the great folding!
