title: On human disease-causing amino acid variants: statistical study of sequence and structural patterns.
abstract: Statistical analysis was carried out on large set of naturally occurring human amino acid variations, and it was demonstrated that there is a preference for some amino acid substitutions to be associated with diseases. At an amino acid sequence level, it was shown that the disease-causing variants frequently involve drastic changes in amino acid physicochemical properties of proteins such as charge, hydrophobicity, and geometry. Structural analysis of variants involved in diseases and being frequently observed in human population showed similar trends: disease-causing variants tend to cause more changes in hydrogen bond network and salt bridges as compared with harmless amino acid mutations. Analysis of thermodynamics data reported in the literature, both experimental and computational, indicated that disease-causing variants tend to destabilize proteins and their interactions, which prompted us to investigate the effects of amino acid mutations on large databases of experimentally measured energy changes in unrelated proteins. Although the experimental datasets were linked neither to diseases nor exclusory to human proteins, the observed trends were the same: amino acid mutations tend to destabilize proteins and their interactions. Having in mind that structural and thermodynamics properties are interrelated, it is pointed out that any large change in any of them is anticipated to cause a disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29642, USA.
authors.forename: Marharyta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petukh
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29642, USA.
authors.forename: Tugba G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Kucukkal
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29642, USA.
authors.forename: Emil
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Alexov
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D019943:Amino Acid Substitution; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D056726:Genetic Association Studies / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D006860:Hydrogen Bonding; D015233:Models, Statistical; D046912:Multiprotein Complexes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D009154:Mutation; D011485:Protein Binding; D011487:Protein Conformation; D055503:Protein Multimerization; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D046912:Multiprotein Complexes
keywords: amino acid variations; disease mutations; hydrogen bond; structure