ABSTRACT
Objective: In order to further investigate the structural/functional relationship of TRALL. Methods: We did homology modeling for the extracellular segment of TRAIL, which is from R117 to G281, totally 165 aa residues long. The modeling software is Insight II from MSI/Biosym and the modeling work is based on the three dimensional structure of TNF-?. Results: From the modeling result, it can be seen that the modeled structure of TRAIL contains 10 ?-sheets and homologs for all these sheets could be found in TNF-?. This just confirms with the principle that the structurally con-seived regions within molecules of the same structure family should experience relatively small sequence mutations. In addition, the credibility of the modeled structure is checked by the way of inverse folding from Profile-3D. Conclusion: The result shows modeled structure is generally correct.