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Crystal structure of a monomeric retroviral protease solved by protein folding game players

2011; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 18; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nsmb.2119

1545-9993

Firas Khatib, Frank DiMaio, Seth Cooper, Maciej Kazmierczyk, Mirosław Gilski, Szymon Krzywda, Helena Zábranská, Iva Pichová, James Thompson, Zoran Popović, Mariusz Jaskólski, David Baker,

HIV/AIDS drug development and treatment

The online game Foldit invites players to solve problems involving protein structure prediction. Now Foldit players have been recruited to work on a modeling problem and ultimately solve the crystal structure of a retroviral protease that had resisted previous determination. Following the failure of a wide range of attempts to solve the crystal structure of M-PMV retroviral protease by molecular replacement, we challenged players of the protein folding game Foldit to produce accurate models of the protein. Remarkably, Foldit players were able to generate models of sufficient quality for successful molecular replacement and subsequent structure determination. The refined structure provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs.