Protein structure prediction — An Ab initio approach

We describe LINUS (Local Independently Nucleated Units of Structure), a computer program for simulating the protein folding process. At its core, LINUS is a Metropolis Monte Carlo procedure with a ‘smart’ move set for efficient exploration of conformational space and a simple energy function to rank conformations. It is shown that LINUS can successfully anticipate a large fraction of the native state secondary and super-secondary structure.