title: Critical sites: a semantic approach to protein sequences. Application to the HIV-1 envelope molecule.
abstract: We have designed two software systems allowing the study of proteins through a comparison to those stored in data banks. The first one, "Automat", locates in a systematic manner all identities shared by a given protein and the proteins in a data bank. The second, "Critic" enables the selection of specific segments in a given molecule by comparing them with those gathered in a data bank. These sites were termed "critical" since they mostly correspond to functional sites (active sites) of the well-known proteins which were studied with the aid of this program (somatostatin, insulin, IL2, etc). Automat allowed us to reveal homologies between HIV-1 and the CD4, which have remained unsolved until now. These similitudes proved to be critical sites (according to Critic). The putative involvement of these sites in the physiopathological processes as induced by HIV-1 are worth considering since the results of our experiments are consistent with this assumption.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physiologie Cellulaire, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France.
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Zagury
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cantalloube
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lachgar
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fall
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Achour
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Mbika
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Cosme
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pellion
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Issing
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001665:Binding Sites; D015704:CD4 Antigens / Q000737:chemistry; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000737:chemistry*; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012984:Software; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D015704:CD4 Antigens; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins