The folding funnel landscape for the peptide Met-enkephalin

We study the free energy landscape of the small peptide Met-enkephalin. Our data were obtained from a generalized-ensemble Monte Carlo simulation taki ng the interactions among all atoms into account, We show that the free ene rgy landscape resembles that of a funnel, indicating that this peptide is a good folder Our work demonstrates that the energy landscape picture and fo lding concept, developed in the context of simplified protein models, can a lso be used. to describe the folding in more realistic models. Proteins 199 9;34:422-483. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.