Foldit Wiki
Foldit Wiki
Advertisement
Hydrophobic Disaster banded

Hydrophobic Disaster has one sheet sticking out. Banding and wiggling will pull it into line. Banding and freezing the good parts helps speed things up. Display of voids, exposeds, and clashes has been turned off, see the "Technical Stuff" section.

Hydrophobic Disaster starts with one sheet sticking out the right. The sheet has three blotchy yellow exposed hydrophobics. At least five other hydrophobics are exposed in other parts of the protein.

Loci's "Hydrophobic Disaster" video

Like some of the previous puzzles, the key is to move the lone sheet into line with the others. When the sheets are properly aligned, they'll form hydrogen bonds, which will help keep the protein together.

There's a group of three sheets that are already bonded. You may want to add bands between these sheets to keep them together. You may also want to freeze the three good sheets and the three helixes using shift + double click.

Once you have the better part of the protein protected, try adding bands from the lower sheet in the group of three to the sheet that's sticking out. Try to line up the hills and valleys of these two sheets, but don't worry about it too much. The sheets are far apart, the goal is get them closer. You can adjust things later if needed. Only about four sheets are needed.

When you have the stray sheet banded, wiggle. If you have sound turned on, you'll hear popping noises as hydrogen bonds between the "good" sheets break. Continue wiggling until the first three sheets are bonded again, and the fourth sheet has been pulled into line.

After the initial wiggle, use Unfreeze Protein and Remove Bands, then shake and wiggle again. This should be enough to solve the puzzle.

Technical stuff: we'll see the same protein again in the Electron Density puzzle. Unlike some of the other examples, this is a complete, real protein.

Sometimes the splotchy red voids, the blotchy yellow exposeds, and the spiky red clashes get kind of annoying. You can toggle them on and off with these keyboard shortcuts:

  • shift + V - toggle voids
  • shift + X - toggle exposeds
  • shift + C - toggle clashes

Turning off these displays may make it easier to see what you're doing while banding.

Turning off the sidechain display may also help. The shortcuts are:

  • shift + A - show all sidechains
  • shift + D - hide sidechains (where possible)
  • shift + T - show sidechain "stubs"

For this puzzle, shift + A turns off many, but not all sidechains. This tends to make banding a little easier. There's another view option, "show sidechains with clashes or exposeds" involved, but it doesn't have a keyboard shortcut.

The "stubs" option shows only the first "nub" or "knuckle" of each sidechain, making everything look like alanine. The sidechain expands when you hover over it. The first nub is called the beta carbon. Some upcoming puzzles will start in stubs mode.

Glycine isn't affected by the sidechain view options. It doesn't have a sidechain, just a hydrogen atom where the beta carbon would go.

Advertisement