Foldit

1500: Aflatoxin Challenge: Round 6 with Insertions

Closed since about 8 years ago

Summary

Created: March 21, 2018
Expires: April 04, 2018 at 23:00 UTC
Max points: 100

Description

The aflatoxin puzzles are back! This puzzle is very similar to Puzzle 1455: Aflatoxin Challenge: Round 4, but parts of the scaffold protein have been trimmed to reduce the size of the puzzle, and we've upweighted ligand interactions by a factor of five. We'd like to see if Foldit players can design proteins that make more interactions with the ligand! See the blog for more details. Unfortunately, due to the scaffold trimming and the recent Foldit update, players will not be able to load solutions from Puzzle 1455.

Aflatoxins are a class of poisonous compounds that contaminate a significant portion of the global food supply. In this puzzle, players are challenged to redesign an enzyme that could break down aflatoxin molecules. The majority of the protein is frozen, with the aflatoxin ligand fixed in a binding pocket. Surrounding the binding pocket are a number of loops that might be redesigned without affecting the folding stability of the protein. In these loops, players may manipulate the protein backbone, insert additional residues, and mutate the residue sidechains. Redesign the loops of this protein to better bind the aflatoxin ligand!

This is the sixth puzzle of our Aflatoxin Challenge, sponsored by Mars Inc. and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Promising designs will be tested by the Siegel Lab at UC Davis. By participating in the challenge/game, the players agree that all player designs will be available permanently in the public domain, and the players will not seek intellectual property protection over the designs created as part of the challenge/game.