Protein design with fragment databases

Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2011 Aug;21(4):452-9. doi: 10.1016/j.sbi.2011.05.002. Epub 2011 Jun 16.

Abstract

Structure-based computational methods are popular tools for designing proteins and interactions between proteins because they provide the necessary insight and details required for rational engineering. Here, we first argue that large-scale databases of fragments contain a discrete but complete set of building blocks that can be used to design structures. We show that these structural alphabets can be saturated to provide conformational ensembles that sample the native structure space around energetic minima. Second, we show that catalogs of interaction patterns hold the key to overcome the lack of scaffolds when computationally designing protein interactions. Finally, we illustrate the power of database-driven computational protein design methods by recent successful applications and discuss what challenges remain to push this field forward.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Databases, Protein*
  • Humans
  • Models, Molecular
  • Peptide Fragments / chemistry*
  • Peptide Fragments / genetics
  • Peptide Fragments / metabolism
  • Protein Conformation
  • Protein Engineering / methods*
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteins / genetics
  • Proteins / metabolism

Substances

  • Peptide Fragments
  • Proteins