Cellular automata for modeling protein folding using the HP model

Abstract

We used cellular automata (CA) for the modeling of the temporal folding of proteins. Unlike the focus of the vast research already done on the direct prediction of the final folded conformations, we will model the temporal and dynamic folding process. The CA model defines how the amino acids interact through time to obtain a folded conformation. We employed the TIP model to represent the protein conformations in a lattice, we extended the classical CA models using artificial neural networks for their implementation, and we used evolutionary computing to automatically obtain the models by means of Differential Evolution. Moreover, the modeling of the folding provides the final protein conformation.