Rebelling for a reason: protein structural "outliers"

PLoS One. 2013 Sep 20;8(9):e74416. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0074416. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Analysis of structural variation in domain superfamilies can reveal constraints in protein evolution which aids protein structure prediction and classification. Structure-based sequence alignment of distantly related proteins, organized in PASS2 database, provides clues about structurally conserved regions among different functional families. Some superfamily members show large structural differences which are functionally relevant. This paper analyses the impact of structural divergence on function for multi-member superfamilies, selected from the PASS2 superfamily alignment database. Functional annotations within superfamilies, with structural outliers or 'rebels', are discussed in the context of structural variations. Overall, these data reinforce the idea that functional similarities cannot be extrapolated from mere structural conservation. The implication for fold-function prediction is that the functional annotations can only be inherited with very careful consideration, especially at low sequence identities.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Databases, Protein*
  • Humans
  • Models, Molecular
  • Protein Conformation*
  • Protein Structure, Tertiary
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteins / classification
  • Sequence Alignment / methods*
  • Software

Substances

  • Proteins

Grants and funding

Gandhimathi Arumugam is supported by Senior Research Fellowship from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The work is supported by Centre for Excellence Grant by Department of Biotechnology, India and The National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) for financial and infrastructural support. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.