title: Molecular mechanisms of disease-causing missense mutations.
abstract: Genetic variations resulting in a change of amino acid sequence can have a dramatic effect on stability, hydrogen bond network, conformational dynamics, activity and many other physiologically important properties of proteins. The substitutions of only one residue in a protein sequence, so-called missense mutations, can be related to many pathological conditions and may influence susceptibility to disease and drug treatment. The plausible effects of missense mutations range from affecting the macromolecular stability to perturbing macromolecular interactions and cellular localization. Here we review the individual cases and genome-wide studies that illustrate the association between missense mutations and diseases. In addition, we emphasize that the molecular mechanisms of effects of mutations should be revealed in order to understand the disease origin. Finally, we report the current state-of-the-art methodologies that predict the effects of mutations on protein stability, the hydrogen bond network, pH dependence, conformational dynamics and protein function.
authors.affiliation: Computational Biophysics and Bioinformatics, Department of Physics, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA.
authors.forename: Shannon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stefl
authors.forename: Hafumi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nishi
authors.forename: Marharyta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petukh
authors.forename: Anna R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Panchenko
authors.forename: Emil
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Alexov
mesh_terms: D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D020125:Mutation, Missense; D055550:Protein Stability; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins
keywords: 3D; HDL; MD; RTK; SNP; SVM; diseases; genetic variation; high-density lipoprotein; molecular dynamics; rare mutations; receptor tyrosine kinase; single nucleotide polymorphism; support vector machine; three-dimensional