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1155: gp120 Design: V3 Hairpin

Closed since over 10 years ago

Intermediate Overall Design Symmetry

Summary

Created
November 04, 2015
Expires
Max points
100
Description

This protein is a portion of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein. The HIV-1 Env protein is a trimer of heterodimers--gp120 (the receptor binding domain) and gp41 (the transmembrane and fusion domain)--and is found on the surface of the HIV-1 virus. The HIV-1 Env complex is responsible for recognizing and binding to a human immune cell through its receptors. When gp120 binds to the human receptors (CD4 and CXCR4 or CXCR5), dramatic conformational changes occur in gp120 and gp41 that cause the virus to fuse with and infect the human cell. This structure of gp120, in a pre-fusion conformation, was recently obtained by x-ray crystallography. However, we know that the V3 loop of gp120 (which exists as a beta-hairpin here) can move in solution, allowing binding of antibodies that will clash with this pre-fusion conformation.



We're asking Foldit players to redesign the V3 hairpin to stabilize it in this pre-fusion conformation! Note that this protein exists as a trimer; stabilization of the hairpin may also be achieved through intermolecular contacts! See the puzzle comments for more details.

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Comments

bkoep Staff Lv 1

This puzzle includes no extra filters, but we have enabled some constraints to keep the V3 hairpin close to its starting conformation. The rest of the gp120 protein has a fixed backbone.

Players may only mutate residues on the V3 hairpin.

stomjoh Lv 1

I asked on the forums, but I'll also ask here: If there is a scoring bug going on with this puzzle, shouldn't it be taken down/restarted with the bug fixed? Or, will the bug be fixed before the puzzle finishes?