title: Understanding the molecular machinery of genetics through 3D structures.
abstract: Detailed knowledge of the three-dimensional structures of biological molecules has had an enormous impact on all areas of biological science, including genetics, as structure can reveal the fine details of how molecules perform their biological functions. Here we consider how changes in protein sequence affect the corresponding 3D structure, and describe how structural information about proteins, DNA and chromatin has shed light on gene regulatory mechanisms and the storage and transmission of epigenetic information. Finally, we describe how structure determination is benefiting from the high-throughput technologies of the worldwide structural genomics projects.
authors.affiliation: European Bioinformatics Institute, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SD, UK. roman@ebi.ac.uk
authors.forename: Roman A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Laskowski
authors.forename: Janet M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Thornton
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002843:Chromatin / Q000737:chemistry; D030562:Databases, Protein; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic / Q000502:physiology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional / Q000502:physiology; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D017354:Point Mutation / Q000502:physiology; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D017384:Sequence Deletion / Q000502:physiology; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D011506:Proteins