Figure 1.

Construction of the contact-graph model. (a) A portion of a β-hairpin, with sequential residues indicated by alternating colors. We assume that the residues are segmented at the N–Cα bond. (b) An abstract graph representation of this structure, where vertices correspond to residues and edges to residue–residue contacts. The polymer backbone is indicated by the thick line. (c) A schematic contact graph and (d) an allowed microstate, with independent structured regions indicated by dashes. Within each structured region, all possible native contacts are formed. To see this figure in color, go online.