Other amino acids and metalloproteins

Started by BarrySampson

BarrySampson Lv 1

Hi

I've only just started using this programme and it's really great! However, as a recently retired inorganic biochemist I would love to see selenomethionine and selenocysteine as options. Also, do you have the possibility of handling metalloproteins? I may be biased, but there are many major zinc and iron binding proteins out there!

bkoep Staff Lv 1

In theory, yes, we could support additional amino acids in Foldit.

However, Foldit does not do any atomic orbital calculations (our modeling engine uses simple ball-and-stick molecular mechanics). I think the only difference between SeMET and MET would be a slightly larger atomic radius at the Se position (?), which is unlikely to have a serious effect on Foldit protein models.

We can also model metalloproteins, insofar as we can include a metal ion with the appropriate charge and atomic radius. But, without orbital calculations, we typically have to define the metal coordination geometry by hand.