A hybrid genetic algorithm for the 3-D protein structure prediction problem using a path-relinking strategy

One of the main research problems in Structural Bioinformatics is related to the prediction of three-dimensional structures (3-D) of polypeptides or proteins. The rate at which amino acid sequences are identified is increasing faster than the 3-D protein structure determination by experimental methods. Computational prediction methods have been developed during the last years, but the problem still remains challenging because of the complexity and high dimensionality of a protein conformational search space. In this article we present a hybrid genetic algorithm for the Protein Structure Prediction (PSP) Problem. A genetic algorithm is combined with a structured population, and it is hybridized with a path-relinking procedure that helps the algorithm to scape from local minima. We perform a set of experiments and show that the proposed hybrid genetic algorithm is effective in finding good quality solutions for the PSP Problem.