游戏玩家破解蛋白质谜题，艾滋病研究有望获重大突破

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Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol.：游戏玩家破解蛋白质谜题，艾滋病研究有望获重大突破
仅用了三周时间，游戏玩家就解决了一个困扰科学家好几年的难题。一群玩家通过玩游戏发现了一种蛋白质的结构，这种蛋白质在艾滋病毒生长过程中起到了至关重要的作用。该发现标志着人类有望在艾滋病毒（HIV）和艾滋病（AIDS）研究领域获得重大突破。这一成果刊登在《自然—结构与分子生物学》（Nature Structural & Molecular Biology）杂志上。

在一款名叫Foldit的游戏中，玩家可以预测逆转录病毒蛋白酶的结构，这种酶在艾滋病毒复制过程中起到了关键作用。从理论上讲，解开这种蛋白质的结构可以帮助科学家开发阻止蛋白酶传布的药物。


“很多人尝试通过分子替代的方法解决M-PMV的晶体结构问题，但都失败了，于是我们向蛋白质折叠游戏Foldit的玩家发起了挑战，让他们制作该蛋白质的精确模型。出人意料的是，这些玩家制作的模型质量很高，可成功地用于分子替代和结构判断。这种更准确的结构为设计抗逆转录病毒药物提供了新的见解。”


人类具有空间推理能力，这是计算机所不擅长的。游戏则提供了一个框架，把计算机和人类的优势整合到一起。Foldit首席设计师Seth Cooper说到。


这项通过Foldit取得的突破不仅可用于艾滋病研究，还可用于癌症和帕金森症的研究。(生物谷 Bioon.com)

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Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzleBy AFP | Plugged In – Mon, Sep 19, 2011 12:19 PM EDT

Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

Photo by AFP

The exploit is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where -- exceptionally in scientific publishing -- both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.

Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.
Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.




But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti.



Pharmacologists, though, need a 3-D picture that "unfolds" the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs.
This is where Foldit comes in.


Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids -- the building blocks of proteins -- using a set of online tools.


To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.


Cracking the enzyme "provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs," says the study, referring to the lifeline medication against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).


It is believed to be the first time that gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem.


"We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed," Firas Khatib of the university's biochemistry lab said in a press release. "The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems."


One of Foldit's creators, Seth Cooper, explained why gamers had succeeded where computers had failed.


"People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at," he said.


"Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week's paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before."