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Every protein in a living cell needs to assume a proper structure in order to fulfill its biological function.
The proteins that fails to do so cause malfunction of cells,
often leading to disastrous diseases.
Thus, how a protein folds into its native
structure is one of the central biological processes that need to be understood.
The modern view of protein folding suggests
that a folding process is governed by structural transitions
among a wide spectrum of structures that a protein could access;
all of these possible structures and associated transitions
constitute a complex roadmap for protein to follow,
very much like the one commonly used to navigate a car to its destination through the best route.
Obtaining comprehensive and accurate roadmaps for protein folding
are essential for the characterization of correct folding routes.
In theory, such a roadmap could be explored through computational simulations
using an accurate model including every atomistic detail;
in practice, the structural complexity of proteins turns the exploration of its roadmap into a daunting computational task.
As reported recently,
researchers have demonstrated an efficient way to explore roadmaps
for protein folding by utilizing a hybrid model which combines atomic
models for the protein part with a fast simplified model for the surrounding water part
in order to achieve both accuracy and efficiency.
By investigating folding mechanisms of two proteins,
the researchers showed that their approach is able to generate folding roadmaps
as accurate as those obtained with complete atomic models
while only taking days to finish the task,
much faster than the complete atomic models that usually need months.
For details, please see our hybrid-resolution model website.