Title:Genome-wide Membrane Protein Structure Prediction
Volume: 14
Issue: 5
Author(s): Stefano Piccoli, Eda Suku, Marianna Garonzi and Alejandro Giorgetti
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Genome-wide scale analysis, Homology modeling, Human membrane proteome, Multitasking approach, Protein
structural bioinformatics, Membrane protein.
Abstract: Transmembrane proteins allow cells to extensively communicate with the external world in a very accurate and
specific way. They form principal nodes in several signaling pathways and attract large interest in therapeutic intervention,
as the majority pharmaceutical compounds target membrane proteins. Thus, according to the current genome annotation
methods, a detailed structural/functional characterization at the protein level of each of the elements codified in the
genome is also required. The extreme difficulty in obtaining high-resolution three-dimensional structures, calls for computational
approaches. Here we review to which extent the efforts made in the last few years, combining the structural
characterization of membrane proteins with protein bioinformatics techniques, could help describing membrane proteins
at a genome-wide scale. In particular we analyze the use of comparative modeling techniques as a way of overcoming the
lack of high-resolution three-dimensional structures in the human membrane proteome.
