Multipolar representation of protein structure

Background: That the structure determines the function of proteins is a central paradigm in biology. However, protein functions are more directly related to cooperative effects at the residue and multi-residue scales. As such, current representations based on atomic coordinates can be considered inadequate. Bridging the gap between atomic-level structure and overall protein-level functionality requires parameterizations of the protein structure (and other physicochemical properties) in a quasi-continuous range, from a simple collection of unrelated amino acids coordinates to the highly synergistic organization of the whole protein entity, from a microscopic view in which each atom is completely resolved to a "macroscopic" description such as the one encoded in the three-dimensional protein shape. Results: Here we propose such a parameterization and study its relationship to the standard Euclidian description based on amino acid representative coordinates. The representation ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Apostol Gramada, Philip E. Bourne
• Keywords: Amino Acid, BMCBI 2006, Protein Structures, Proteins