Protein Folding: Detailed Models

Abstract

Proteins play a fundamental role in biology. With their ability to perform numerous biological roles, including acting as catalysts, antibodies, and molecular signals, proteins today realize many of the goals that modern nanotechnology aspires to. However, before proteins can carry out these remarkable molecular functions, they must perform another amazing feat — they must assemble themselves. This process of protein self-assembly into a particular shape, or “fold” is called protein folding. Due to the importance of the folded state in the biological activity of proteins, recent interest from misfolding related diseases [1], as well as a fascination of just how this process occurs [2–4], there has been much work performed in order to unravel the mechanism of protein folding [5].