Structure prediction of partial-length protein sequences

Int J Mol Sci. 2013 Jul 17;14(7):14892-907. doi: 10.3390/ijms140714892.

Abstract

Protein structure information is essential to understand protein function. Computational methods to accurately predict protein structure from the sequence have primarily been evaluated on protein sequences representing full-length native proteins. Here, we demonstrate that top-performing structure prediction methods can accurately predict the partial structures of proteins encoded by sequences that contain approximately 50% or more of the full-length protein sequence. We hypothesize that structure prediction may be useful for predicting functions of proteins whose corresponding genes are mapped expressed sequence tags (ESTs) that encode partial-length amino acid sequences. Additionally, we identify a confidence score representing the quality of a predicted structure as a useful means of predicting the likelihood that an arbitrary polypeptide sequence represents a portion of a foldable protein sequence ("foldability"). This work has ramifications for the prediction of protein structure with limited or noisy sequence information, as well as genome annotation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Databases, Protein
  • Expressed Sequence Tags
  • Protein Folding
  • Protein Structure, Tertiary
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteins / metabolism
  • Software

Substances

  • Proteins