Abstract
The statistical mechanics of protein folding implies that the best-folding proteins are those that have the native conformation as a pronounced energy minimum. We show that this can be obtained by proper selection of protein sequences and suggest a simple practical way to find these sequences. The statistical mechanics of these proteins with optimized native structure is discussed. These concepts are tested with a simple lattice model of a protein with full enumeration of compact conformations. Selected sequences are shown to have a native state that is very stable and kinetically accessible.
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