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851: Trimer Interface Redesign: Round 1

Closed since about 12 years ago

Summary

Created: February 28, 2014
Expires: March 03, 2014 at 23:00 UTC
Max points: 100

Description

This is a symmetric trimer that was originally designed by Museka in Puzzle 742. We'd like you to try to redesign the interface between the subunits to include a couple hydrogen bonds and blue, polar contacts amongst all the orange hydrophobic residues that are in the starting structure. Baker Lab scientists have cloned and expressed this protein in E. coli, but instead of aligning into well-ordered trimers, it appears to form disordered aggregates in solution. We think that this can be corrected by reducing the hydrophobic surface of the monomer subunit. Because this is uncharted territory for our score function, we're starting out with a pretty low tolerance for buried polar residues. We plan to post several of these puzzles in series—each with increased tolerance for a polar interface.