Modelling of structure and function of proteins and nucleic acids

The native conformation of a linear biopolymer is, under physiological conditions, exclusively determined by the sequence of the side chains. The task of predicting the native structure on the sequence basis remains unsolved. In this paper we present our attempts to describe and predict conformations of biopolymers undertaken at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in collaboration with groups of W. Saenger (Freie Universität Berlin, F.R.G.) and S. Neidle (Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton, U.K.). The investigations, reviewed below, carried out in recent years by our group (A. Rabczenko, P. Herzyk, D. Płochocka, J. Wiórkiewicz-Kuczera, P. Zielenkiewicz) resulted in the creation and accumulation of software allowing theoretical description of nucleic acids and proteins.