Identifying Functional Sites in Proteins Using Destabilizing Regions
Author Information
Author(s): Dessailly Benoît H, Lensink Marc F, Wodak Shoshana J
Primary Institution: Université Libre de Bruxelles
Hypothesis
Can destabilizing regions in protein structures be used to predict functional sites?
Conclusion
Destabilizing regions can provide useful information about functional sites that bind polysaccharides and small ligands, but are less effective for nucleic acid binding sites.
Supporting Evidence
- The study analyzed 63 unrelated proteins to assess the overlap between destabilizing regions and known functional sites.
- Statistically significant overlaps were found in 77% of the proteins examined.
- The method provides a publicly available benchmark of hand-curated functional sites in proteins.
Takeaway
This study looks at how certain parts of proteins that make them less stable can help scientists find where these proteins interact with other molecules.
Methodology
The study used a procedure to detect destabilizing regions in protein structures and compared these with known functional sites.
Limitations
The overlap between destabilizing regions and functional sites is modest and varies significantly with the type of ligand.
Statistical Information
P-Value
3.305e-08
Statistical Significance
p<0.05
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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