In the Wikipedia article on protein folding, I read:
The process of folding often begins co-translationally, so that the N-terminus of the protein begins to fold while the C-terminal portion of the protein is still being synthesized by the ribosome.
I understand that this means that a protein will start curling up from one end, like a retractable tape measure, starting at one end. I imagine that one strategy for playing foldit would be to start at the N-terminus of the protein, find which parts of the developing protein are attracted to each other, and create a first-pass shape for the new chain. A second pass could then be used to compact the first-pass shape into a glob, and then the Wiggle tools could be used to find the lowest energy position associated with the compacted shape.
Is this a technique that successful folders are using?
Is there a place where the highest-scoring hand-folders share their techniques?
I think people have done experiments where they change the solvent/temperature to make a protein unfold and then change the solvent/temperature again to make the protein refold into its desired conformation. If anyone knows a good reference about this, please post it here. Thanks!
http://fold.it/portal/node/1998737 and http://foldit.wikia.com/wiki/BBF
have links to a series of Black Belt Folding videos.
The Foldit wiki has some pages about folding strategies.
See http://foldit.wikia.com/wiki/Strategy for example.
See this thread in the Rosetta forums
http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=2791
Short answer: unfortunately that technique is unlikely to be useful.