Structure-based functional discovery of proteins: structural proteomics

J Biochem Mol Biol. 2004 Jan 31;37(1):28-34. doi: 10.5483/bmbrep.2004.37.1.028.

Abstract

The discovery of biochemical and cellular functions of unannotated gene products begins with a database search of proteins with structure/sequence homologues based on known genes. Very recently, a number of frontier groups in structural biology proposed a new paradigm to predict biological functions of an unknown protein on the basis of its three-dimensional structure on a genomic scale. Structural proteomics (genomics), a research area for structure-based functional discovery, aims to complete the protein-folding universe of all gene products in a cell. It would lead us to a complete understanding of a living organism from protein structure. Two major complementary experimental techniques, X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy, combined with recently developed high throughput methods have played a central role in structural proteomics research; however, an integration of these methodologies together with comparative modeling and electron microscopy would speed up the goal for completing a full dictionary of protein folding space in the near future.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Crystallography, X-Ray
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
  • Models, Molecular
  • Protein Conformation
  • Protein Folding
  • Protein Structure, Secondary
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteins / physiology*
  • Proteins / ultrastructure
  • Proteome / genetics
  • Proteomics / methods*
  • Structure-Activity Relationship

Substances

  • Proteins
  • Proteome