Target selection and determination of function in structural genomics.
The first crucial step in any structural genomics project is the selection and prioritization of target proteins for structure determination. There may be a number of selection criteria to be satisfied, including that the proteins have novel folds, that they be representatives of large families for which no structure is known, and so on. The better the selection at this stage, the greater is the value of the structures obtained at the end of the experimental process. This value can be further enhanced once the protein structures have been solved if the functions of the given proteins can also be determined. Here we describe the methods used at either end of the experimental process: firstly, sensitive sequence comparison techniques for selecting a high-quality list of target proteins, and secondly the various computational methods that can be applied to the eventual 3D structures to determine the most likely biochemical function of the proteins in question.
Watson
James D
JD
EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK.
Todd
Annabel E
AE
Bray
James
J
Laskowski
Roman A
RA
Edwards
Aled
A
Joachimiak
Andrzej
A
Orengo
Christine A
CA
Thornton
Janet M
JM
D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D030562:Databases, Protein; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D010802:Phylogeny; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
D011506:Proteins