Are There Folding Pathways in the Functional Stages of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins?

We proceed from the description of protein folding by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with all-atom force fields, with folding pathways interpreted in terms of soliton structures, to identify possible systematic dynamical patterns of self-organisation that govern protein folding process. We perform in silico investigations of the conformational transformations of three different proteins MYC protein (an alpha-helical protein), amylin and indolicidin (IDPs with different length and binding dynamics). We discuss the emergence of soliton-mediated secondary motifs, in the case of IDPs in the context of their functional activity. We hypothesize that soliton-like quasi-ordered conformations appear as an important intermediate stage in this process.