Subject: CCL: Protein Structure Prediction

From: Shubin Liu <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 13:52:00 -0500 (EST)

Dear netters:

I am not sure if it is appropriate to post this message here in this 
newsgroup. Anyway, I will be glad to hear your oppinions.

Recently, I am interested in the theoretical prediction of the secondary 
structure, that is, folding, of proteins. It seems to me that there 
should exist some tools, which may be either theoretical or empirical, to 
predict the folding process of each protein based on its sequence. The 
fundamental blocks of this process is believed to be the alapha-helix and 
beta-sheet, which are also believed not to be formed arbitrarily. I found 
that there seems exist some regularities in the folding of these helixes 
and sheets, which govern the shape of the secondary structure of the 
protein. These regularities or rules seem not to be well-recogized or 
mentioned in references, as of my knowledge whose major is not biology.

My questions are, then, is it possible to predict it? if not impossible, 
what progress has been made in this topic? Has someone mentioned the 
regularities or rules during the folding process for alapha-helix and 
beta-sheet as I believed above?

Looking forward to hearing from you! Thanks for your attention!

Shubin
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Shubin Liu

Department of Chemistry			    Email: [email-masked]
University of North Carolina		           [email-masked]
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3290		    Tel  : (919) 962-0150(O)
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