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424 records · Page 24Linked to original sources

Protein secondary structure. Studies on the limits of prediction accuracy.

A secondary structure prediction technique is proposed which includes nucleation site determination through multiplication of conformational preference parameters as well as weighting factors to represent structurally stabilizing short range interactions. The prediction accuracy of the method is calculated using data bases categorized according to the four protein structural classes and with differing assignments of secondary structural regions. The results indicate that nearest neighbor prediction techniques (a) are insensitive to various assignment criteria for the secondary structural spans, (b) have nearly achieved their upper limit of prediction accuracy, and (c) can be somewhat improved through the use of stereochemical weighting factors and conformational parameters derived from the four structural groups.

Chemical Phenomena↗

Employers' perceptions of dietetic team members' roles.

The emergence of supportive personnel in the dietetic field has introduced a question of the appropriate role of each of the different dietetic team members. Since the dietetic technician works closely with the dietitian, a clear understanding of the role of each is necessary if they are to be complementary. This article presented general information obtained from a study of the roles of dietetic team members and potential for the dietetic technician, as perceived by employers. Data from 30 hospitals and 35 long-term care facilities in the north central district of Georgia indicated that dietetic technicians are currently underutilized in both settings. Representatives in hospitals perceived greater potential for the dietetic technician than did those in long-term care facilities, although employers in both settings lacked perceptions of role differentiation among the three members of the dietetic team. An approach to differentiating the role of the dietetic technician from that of the dietitian was presented. This approach could diminish role conflict between the dietitian and the dietetic technician and allow the dietitian to perform the functions of the professional with expertise in nutrition.

Dietetics↗

The nurse's role in diagnosing and treating onychomycosis.

Onychomycosis involves fungal invasion of the nail unit via the nail bed or nail plate. Nurses play an important role in diagnosing the disease, managing it, and educating patients about it. Newer oral antifungal agents have increased success rates with shortened treatment times.

Antifungal Agents↗

Hydrophobic patches on protein subunit interfaces: characteristics and prediction.

Hydrophobic patches, defined as clusters of neighboring apolar atoms deemed accessible on a given protein surface, have been investigated on protein subunit interfaces. The data were taken from known tertiary structures of multimeric protein complexes. Amino acid composition and preference, patch size distribution, and patch contact complementarity across associating subunits were examined and compared with hydrophobic patches found on the solvent-accessible surface of the multimeric complexes. The largest or second largest patch on the accessible surface of the entire subunit was involved in multimeric interfaces in 90% of the cases. These results should prove useful for subunit design and engineering as well as for prediction of subunit interface regions.

Amino Acids↗

Relationships between protein sequence and structure patterns based on residue contacts.

The identification of correlations between sequence patterns and structural motifs is a prerequisite in the development of protein structure prediction methods. The prediction accuracy indicates whether these correlations are discerned. We present an approach to identify long-range relationships between sequence patterns and structural motifs by varying the granulation of the structure description. Since interaction among residues is a major determinant in protein folding, we consider contact environments formed by two triplets of three sequentially neighboring residues and described by vectors whose components express contact strengths on an atomic level. Through testing various classification schemes, including their resolution and optimizing parameters, discernible relationships between sequences and folds are explored. About ten structural contact states, together with information from noncontacting regions, could improve the accuracy of contact prediction.

Chemical Phenomena↗

Accessibility to internal cavities and ligand binding sites monitored by protein crystallographic thermal factors.

Protein structures are flexible both in solution and in the solid state. X-ray crystallographically determined thermal factors monitor the flexibility of protein atoms. A method utilizing such factors is proposed to delineate protein regions through which a ligand can exchange between binding site and bulk solvent. It is based on the assumption that thermally excited protein regions are excellent candidates for opening a ligand channel. Computationally simple and inexpensive, the method analyzes directions from which thermal factors can propagate within the protein, resulting in thermal motion paths (TMPs). Applications to engineered T4 lysozymes, where an artificial internal cavity can host hydrophobic molecules, and to sperm whale myoglobins, where the active site is completely buried, yielded results in agreement with other independent structural observations and with previous hypotheses. Further new features could also be suggested. The proposed TMP analysis could aid molecular dynamics simulation studies as well as time-resolved and site-directed mutagenesis experimental studies, especially given its modest computational expense and its direct roots in experimental results based on thermal factors determined in high-resolution crystallographic studies.

Animals↗

Are knowledge-based potentials derived from protein structure sets discriminative with respect to amino acid types?

The parametric description of residue environments through solvent accessibility, backbone conformation, or pairwise residue-residue distances is the key to the comparison between amino acid types at protein sequence positions and residue locations in structural templates (condition of protein sequence-structure match). For the first time, the research results presented in this study clarify and allow to quantify, on a rigorous statistical basis, to what extent the amino acid type-specific distributions of commonly used environment parameters are discriminative with respect to the 20 amino acid types. Relying on the Bahadur theory, we estimate the probability of error in a single-sequence-structure alignment based on weak or absent discriminative power in a learning database of protein structure. We present the results for many residue environment variables and demonstrate that each fold description parameter is sensitive with respect to only a few amino acid types while indifferent to most of the other amino acid types. Even complex structural characteristics combining solvent-accessible surface area, backbone conformation, and pairwise distances distinguish only some amino acid types, whereas the others remain nondiscriminated. We find that the knowledge-based potentials currently in use treat especially Ala, Asp, Gln, His, Ser, Thr, and Tyr as essentially "average" amino acids. Thus, highly discriminative amino acid types define the alignment register in gapless sequence-structure alignments. The introduction of gaps leads to alignment ambiguities at sequence positions occupied by nondiscriminated amino acid types. Therefore, local sequence-structure alignments produced by techniques with gaps cannot be reliable. Conceptionally new and more sensitive environment parameters must be invented.

Amino Acids↗

Easy method to predict solvent accessibility from multiple protein sequence alignments.

An easy and uncomplicated method to predict the solvent accessibility state of a site in a multiple protein sequence alignment is described. The approach is based on amino acid exchange and compositional preference matrices for each of three accessibility states: buried, exposed, and intermediate. Calculations utilized a modified version of the 3D_ali databank, a collection of multiple sequence alignments anchored through protein tertiary structural superpositions. The technique achieves the same accuracy as much more complex methods and thus provides such advantages as computational affordability, facile updating, and easily understood residue substitution patterns useful to biochemists involved in protein engineering, design, and structural prediction. The program is available from the authors; and, due to its simplicity, the algorithm can be readily implemented on any system. For a given alignment site, a hand calculation can yield a comparative prediction.

Amino Acid Sequence↗