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"Topology" of protein folds
by
Teresa Przytycka
NIH
Proteins are fundamental building blocks of modern organisms whihc carry out important functions as enzymes, signal processors, carriers; to name a few. Still, the function of huge number of proteins is unknown and a significant effort is directed towards methods of predicting protein function. Protein function itself is a direct consequence of the protein 3-dimensional structure, the so called fold. About 17 000 of such structures are known and much more are expected to be solved as the result of the outgoing projects. The efforts towards prediction the structure form the amino-acid sequence are also underway. However a visual inspection of a protein structure alone seldom elucidates its function. In contrast, the discovery that the structure of a given protein is similar to a structure of another protein for which the function is known can provide a valuable insight to the possible function of the first protein. Therefore fast and reliable methods for comparison of protein folds and their classification are of particular interest. This talk will serve as an introduction to the world of protein structure. Methods of structure classifications, including one based on speakers work and one based on Vassiliev invariant of knots will be presented.
Date received: April 30, 2003
Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this work and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Topology Atlas. Document # calc-11.