Currenbt puzzle 2191

Started by Idiotboy

Idiotboy Lv 1

Based on the electron cloud on this puzzle, there appears to be an amino acid missing between 65 and 67. Could there be a typographical error in the puzzle that makes it incompatible with the electron density map? To make the protein fit the density map, the sequence 61-HLTIDAVFF-69 should be 61-HLTIxxAVFF-70.

jeff101 Lv 1

https://fold.it/portal/node/2013442#comment-46945 also 
asks if puzzle 2191 is missing at least one residue.

bkoep Staff Lv 1

Yes, you're right, there is a missing residue in the starting structure! I'll have to dig a bit to figure out how that happened. We may run this Puzzle 2191 again with a corrected starting structure.

jeff101 Lv 1

https://fold.it/portal/node/2013442#comment-46953 says 
similar things and adds that there is a region in the 
Electron Density Cloud with "no density to suggest how 
the residue is folded". If this is the case, then instead 
of giving us a protein that is missing a residue there, 
why not give us the entire protein and instead change 
the Electron Density Cloud some? 

Would replacing the bad region with a constant density 
help? Some ideas for the constant density could be zero, 
the average density in the cloud, or the maximum density 
in the cloud. Zero would work best for generally empty 
regions, and large positive values would work best for 
tightly-packed interior regions of the protein. 

Another idea would be to approximate the overall 
Electron Density D as a spherical Gaussian in 3D, like: 
D=density=A*exp(-k*((x-xo)^2 + (y-yo)^2 + (z-zo)^2))
where A and k are positive constants, and xo,yo,zo is 
the approximate center of the Electron Density Cloud. 
With a good enough approximation, one could then 
replace the bad region with the density D given by 
the formula above.