ABSTRACT
MOTIVATION: The 'sequence implies conformation' principle has been the motivation for the construction of numerous systems of secondary and tertiary structure prediction. Computational experiments have shown that this principle can now be extended to quaternary structure prediction. This work appears to be the first effort to predict quaternary structure properties from sequence. RESULTS: The software developed to conduct these experiments was the Quaternary Structure Explorer (QSE). Successful rule-based classifiers have been found that can discriminate between the primary sequences of homodimers and non-homodimers.
Subject(s)
Amino Acid Sequence/genetics , Artificial Intelligence , Protein Structure, Quaternary/genetics , Software , Algorithms , Amino Acids/classification , Databases, Factual , Gene Library , Models, Molecular , Predictive Value of Tests , Sensitivity and SpecificityABSTRACT
This unit is presented as a guide to addressing the issue of what to do with a protein sequence once it is obtained. A theoretical background for protein sequence analysis is provided first, followed by a discussion of matrix methods for sequence comparison (Matrix Methods for Sequence Comparison: Dot Plots). Sequence similarity searching is then presented, including the BLAST and FASTA databases. Other aspects of protein sequence analysis covered here are alignment methods, scoring matrices, multiple alignments, cluster methods and trees, and identification of functional sites.
