Common Structural Cliques: a tool for protein structure and function analysis

Proposed is a method for locating functionally relevant atoms in protein structures and a representation of spatial arrangements of these atoms allowing for a flexible description of active sites in proteins. The search method is based on comparison of local structure features of proteins that share...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Protein engineering 2003-08, Vol.16 (8), p.543-552
Main Authors: Milik, Mariusz, Szalma, Sándor, Olszewski, Krzysztof A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Binding Sites
convergence/function assignment/graph representation/protein structure/structural templates/structure–function relationship
Evolution, Molecular
Models, Molecular
Proteins - chemistry
Serine Endopeptidases - chemistry
Structural Homology, Protein
Transaminases - chemistry
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Summary:Proposed is a method for locating functionally relevant atoms in protein structures and a representation of spatial arrangements of these atoms allowing for a flexible description of active sites in proteins. The search method is based on comparison of local structure features of proteins that share a common biochemical function. The method does not depend on overall similarity of structures and sequences of compared proteins or on previous knowledge about functionally relevant residues. The compared protein structures are condensed to a graph representation, with atoms as nodes and distances as edge labels. Protein graphs are then compared to extract all possible Common Structural Cliques. These cliques are merged to create Structural Templates: graphs that describe structural analogies between compared proteins. Structures of serine endopeptidases were compared in pairs using the presented algorithm with different geometrical parameters. Additionally, a Structural Template was extracted from the structures of aminotransferases, two different proteins that catalyze the same type of chemical reaction. The results presented show that the method works efficiently even in the case of large protein systems and allows for extraction of common structural features from proteins catalyzing a particular chemical reaction, but that evolved from different ancestors by convergent evolution.
ISSN:0269-2139
1741-0126
1460-213X
1741-0134
DOI:10.1093/protein/gzg080