Recognizing protein–protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabets

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In structural genomics, an important goal is the detection and classification of protein–protein interactions, given the structures of the interacting partners. We have developed empirical energy functions to identify native structur...

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Main Authors: Wodak Shoshana, Mendez Raul, Launay Guillaume, Simonson Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2007-07-01
Series:BMC Bioinformatics
Online Access:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/8/270
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author Wodak Shoshana
Mendez Raul
Launay Guillaume
Simonson Thomas
author_facet Wodak Shoshana
Mendez Raul
Launay Guillaume
Simonson Thomas
author_sort Wodak Shoshana
collection DOAJ
description <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In structural genomics, an important goal is the detection and classification of protein–protein interactions, given the structures of the interacting partners. We have developed empirical energy functions to identify native structures of protein–protein complexes among sets of decoy structures. To understand the role of amino acid diversity, we parameterized a series of functions, using a hierarchy of amino acid alphabets of increasing complexity, with 2, 3, 4, 6, and 20 amino acid groups. Compared to previous work, we used the simplest possible functional form, with residue–residue interactions and a stepwise distance-dependence. We used increased computational ressources, however, constructing 290,000 decoys for 219 protein–protein complexes, with a realistic docking protocol where the protein partners are flexible and interact through a molecular mechanics energy function. The energy parameters were optimized to correctly assign as many native complexes as possible. To resolve the multiple minimum problem in parameter space, over 64000 starting parameter guesses were tried for each energy function. The optimized functions were tested by cross validation on subsets of our native and decoy structures, by blind tests on series of native and decoy structures available on the Web, and on models for 13 complexes submitted to the CAPRI structure prediction experiment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Performance is similar to several other statistical potentials of the same complexity. For example, the CAPRI target structure is correctly ranked ahead of 90% of its decoys in 6 cases out of 13. The hierarchy of amino acid alphabets leads to a coherent hierarchy of energy functions, with qualitatively similar parameters for similar amino acid types at all levels. Most remarkably, the performance with six amino acid classes is equivalent to that of the most detailed, 20-class energy function.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This suggests that six carefully chosen amino acid classes are sufficient to encode specificity in protein–protein interactions, and provide a starting point to develop more complicated energy functions.</p>
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spelling doaj.art-081e0694866046d080061b5acff294b62022-12-21T20:46:01ZengBMCBMC Bioinformatics1471-21052007-07-018127010.1186/1471-2105-8-270Recognizing protein–protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabetsWodak ShoshanaMendez RaulLaunay GuillaumeSimonson Thomas<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In structural genomics, an important goal is the detection and classification of protein–protein interactions, given the structures of the interacting partners. We have developed empirical energy functions to identify native structures of protein–protein complexes among sets of decoy structures. To understand the role of amino acid diversity, we parameterized a series of functions, using a hierarchy of amino acid alphabets of increasing complexity, with 2, 3, 4, 6, and 20 amino acid groups. Compared to previous work, we used the simplest possible functional form, with residue–residue interactions and a stepwise distance-dependence. We used increased computational ressources, however, constructing 290,000 decoys for 219 protein–protein complexes, with a realistic docking protocol where the protein partners are flexible and interact through a molecular mechanics energy function. The energy parameters were optimized to correctly assign as many native complexes as possible. To resolve the multiple minimum problem in parameter space, over 64000 starting parameter guesses were tried for each energy function. The optimized functions were tested by cross validation on subsets of our native and decoy structures, by blind tests on series of native and decoy structures available on the Web, and on models for 13 complexes submitted to the CAPRI structure prediction experiment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Performance is similar to several other statistical potentials of the same complexity. For example, the CAPRI target structure is correctly ranked ahead of 90% of its decoys in 6 cases out of 13. The hierarchy of amino acid alphabets leads to a coherent hierarchy of energy functions, with qualitatively similar parameters for similar amino acid types at all levels. Most remarkably, the performance with six amino acid classes is equivalent to that of the most detailed, 20-class energy function.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This suggests that six carefully chosen amino acid classes are sufficient to encode specificity in protein–protein interactions, and provide a starting point to develop more complicated energy functions.</p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/8/270
spellingShingle Wodak Shoshana
Mendez Raul
Launay Guillaume
Simonson Thomas
Recognizing protein–protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabets
BMC Bioinformatics
title Recognizing protein–protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabets
title_full Recognizing protein–protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabets
title_fullStr Recognizing protein–protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabets
title_full_unstemmed Recognizing protein–protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabets
title_short Recognizing protein–protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabets
title_sort recognizing protein protein interfaces with empirical potentials and reduced amino acid alphabets
url http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/8/270
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AT simonsonthomas recognizingproteinproteininterfaceswithempiricalpotentialsandreducedaminoacidalphabets