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1035: Incredibly Difficult 95-residue Electron Density Design Puzzle

Closed since about 11 years ago

Advanced Overall Design Electron Density

Summary

Created
January 08, 2015
Expires
Max points
100
Description

This puzzle is unlike anything we have ever posted before! We have given you extremely accurate electron density, but no sequence information. This protein has 95-residues, but your starting model only has 5 Alanines that are floating in the density. You'll need to insert residues and mutate them as you make your way through the density. We know this won't be easy, some might even suggest that this task is impossible... but we know that if anyone can do it: you can!
We are giving you two weeks to work on this... good luck!

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Comments

beta_helix Staff Lv 1

but we also hope it'll be fun!

There will obviously not be any secondary structure predictions or any additional information for this puzzle.

Cutaway view hint:
If you hover your mouse over a segment and type shift-Q, the game will hide parts of the protein and cloud that are not in the same plane as that segment - it cuts down on how much cloud you see at one time and makes it easier to focus. Q returns to normal view.

Electron Density Features:

  • Notes can be added to the electron density if present. To add one, press TAB with the mouse over the density while the density panel is open. Use the recycle button in the note panel to erase one.

This video from our YouTube channel has Seth Cooper explaining how to add Notes to the electron density: http://youtu.be/iaVk8Yo0_MA

  • There is a button in the Electron Density Panel to focus rotation on the density. You can use the HOME or Q keys to refocus on the protein.

  • The density score of a residue may be viewed in the tab menu

Bautho Lv 1

I mention this problem I already observed several times here, because it is really important for this puzzle:

If you want to move your stub (which is really necessary in this puzzle) with the cursor tool after pressing "3", and then you press "3" again to get rid of the cursor and your mouse is directly over the cross, Foldit crashes immediately…
this makes it even more impossible =/

Susume Lv 1

This ED cloud matches very well with stick view. The extra knobs on the backbone of the cloud line up with the extra twigs that show up between the sidechains in stick view.

Bautho Lv 1

you can clearly see the aromatic residues like phenylalanine, tryptophan and tyrosine (there are two of them each), but also prolines that are good to begin with

However, you should be careful with mutating residues, for example the phenylalanines will be mutated to histidines because they are scoring better on the surface of the protein, although they will not fit exactly into the ED

spmm Lv 1

and completely blocks the view of the seg you are trying to manipulate when you are zoomed in