title: Motif-based construction of a functional map for mammalian olfactory receptors.
abstract: We applied an automatic and unsupervised system to a nearly complete database of mammalian odor receptor genes. The generated motifs and gene classification were subjected to extensive and systematic downstream analysis to obtain biological insights. Two major results from this analysis were: (1) a map of sequence motifs that may correlate with function and (2) the corresponding receptor classes in which members of each class are likely to share specific functions. We have discovered motifs that have been implicated in structural integrity and posttranslational modification, as well as motifs very likely to be directly involved in ligand binding. We further propose a combinatorial molecular hypothesis, based on unique combinations of the observed motifs, that provides a foundation for understanding the generation of a large number of ligand binding sites.
authors.affiliation: Computational Biology Center, T. J. Watson IBM Research, P.O. Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Agatha H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xinmin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Gustavo A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Stolovitzky
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Califano
authors.forename: Stuart J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Firestein
mesh_terms: D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites; D019295:Computational Biology; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D011499:Protein Processing, Post-Translational; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D018035:Receptors, Odorant / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D018035:Receptors, Odorant