Figure 2. Distortions in computed energy landscapes due to error propagation.

If each microstate of a protein under study contains a significant amount of error in its calculated energy (shown here as error bars), computed folding surfaces become distorted with respect to the actual folding surface. This effect introduces difficulty in distinguishing between local minima on the folding surface and in finding the native folds of proteins. This effect is magnified for especially large proteins with many intramolecular contacts contributing to their stable protein folds.