Computational Studies of Biomolecular Structure and Function

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Many important biological processes, such as signalling, recognition, and transport, as well as infection and immune response, involve interactions between peptides or proteins and lipid. The detailed characterization of these processes is currently impeded by the difficulty in elucidating the structure of peptides and proteins in the anisotropic and chemically complex environment provided by lipid bilayers. For these reasons, structural studies of membrane proteins often employ detergent molecules, which mimic the chemical properties of lipid bilayers, to solubilize the proteins, making them more amenable to crystallization. However, at present there are no general methods for the experimental determination of membrane protein structure, underscoring the need for reliable predictive algorithms. A powerful approach to gain insight into the structure and function of biomolecules is to use computer simulations, but the scope of these studies is currently limited by the long time scales required to investigate the folding and self-assembly of proteins and peptides in lipid.