Autowave self-organization in protein folding

A review of the physical laws of spatial structure formation in proteins during folding - process by which a homochiral polypeptide chain acquires a unique native configuration - is presented, including mathematical models of the process. The review materials are summarized by a new phenomenological model for the formation of hierarchies of alternating chiral structures, as well as by a new mathematical model for the formation of -helices as autowave structures. The thermodynamic aspects of folding associated with symmetry factors are discussed.