Protein folding in the HP model on grid lattices with diagonals Original Research Article

The protein folding problem, i.e., the computational prediction of the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence, is one of the most important and challenging problems in computational biology. Since a complete simulation of the folding process of a protein is far too complex to handle, one tries to find an approximate solution by using a simplified, abstract model. One of the most popular models is the so-called HP model, where the hydrophobic interactions between the amino acids are considered to be the main force in the folding process, and furthermore the folding space is modeled by a two- or three-dimensional grid lattice.