人基因中密码子前后碱基使用与蛋白质结构

对６２个人基因中编码蛋白质各类二级结构（α－螺旋、β－折叠片、无规卷曲和回折）的密码子前后碱基的使用情况进行统计分析和比较,发现多数密码子前后碱基的使用有一定偏向,而且这些偏向与蛋白质的二级结构有关联。这同时亦提示,同义密码子的选用与蛋白质的二级结构有一些关联。结果对于蛋白质结构预测算法以及基因工程的研究有辅助作用。     

大肠杆菌基因中密码子前后碱基的使用与蛋白质结构

对一组E.coli基因中编码蛋白质各类二级结构（α-螺旋、β－折叠片、无规卷曲和回折）的密码子前后碱基的使用情况进行统计分析和比较,发现一些密码子前后碱基的使用有偏向,而且这些偏向与蛋白质的二级结构有关联,这同时亦表明,E.coli基因中同义密码子的选用与蛋白质的二级结构有一些关联。模型对于蛋白质结构预测算法的改进以及基因工程的研究有辅助作用。     

肽键的统计分析和蛋白质的二级结构

 本文对蛋白质序列的肽键进行了统计分析,计算了二肽构象参数P_α、P_β、P_c和三肽构象参数Q_α、Q_β、Q_c。在此基础上提出了由氨基酸序列预测二级结构的规则。预测的正确率达90％,优于Chou-Fasman方法。这个结果表明二肽(三肽)关联在形成蛋白质二级结构中具有明显的重要性。     

蛋白质的二级结构预测研究进展

认识蛋白质的二级结构是了解蛋白质的折叠模式和三级结构的基础,并为研究蛋白质的功能以及它们之间的相互作用模式提供结构基础,同时还可以为新药研发提供帮助。故研究蛋白质的二级结构具有重要的意义。随着后基因组时代的到来,越来越多的蛋白质序列不断被发现,给蛋白质的二级结构研究带来巨大的挑战和研究空间。而依靠传统的实验方法很难获取大规模蛋白质的二级结构信息。目前,采用生物信息学手段仍然是获得大部分蛋白质二级结构的途径。近年来,许多研究者通过构建用于二级结构预测的蛋白质数据集,计算、提取蛋白质的各种特征信息,并采用不同的预测算法预测蛋白质的二级结构得到了快速的发展。本文拟从蛋白质的特征信息的提取与筛选、预测算法以及预测效果的检验方法等方面进行综述,介绍蛋白质二级结构预测领域的研究进展。相信随着基因组学、蛋白质组学和生物信息学的不断发展,蛋白质二级结构预测会不断取得新突破。     

Beta结构氨基酸支持度分析的研究

蛋白质空间结构的分析与预测已经成为现今分子生物学和生物信息学的重要研究课题之一。虽然引入了3D-profile,人工神经网络,遗传算法等复杂的模型或算法,并获得了相对较高的准确率,但是却很难对所得到的结果进行解释,且不易发现其中的生物学规律。而相应地,氨基酸序列所隐含的蛋白质结构信息,生物学和数学意义才应是我们所需探寻的重点。因此我们从分析构成特定二级结构的氨基酸序列着手,引入涉及关联规则的支持度S来计算特殊位点处氨基酸的贡献率,以期发现其中的隐含信息,并获得了相应的数据信息矩阵。通过分析二级结构的支持度,不仅得到了各氨基酸位于不同位点时相对于Beta结构的强弱作用关系,还发现了脯氨酸的特殊作用和相对于Beta结构的成核性。     

蛋白质二级结构预测: 基于词条的最大熵马尔科夫方法

提出了一种新的蛋白质二级结构预测方法. 该方法从氨基酸序列中提取出和自然语言中的“词”类似的与物种相关的蛋白质二级结构词条, 这些词条形成了蛋白质二级结构词典, 该词典描述了氨基酸序列和蛋白质二级结构之间的关系. 预测蛋白质二级结构的过程和自然语言中的分词和词性标注一体化的过程类似. 该方法把词条序列看成是马尔科夫链, 通过Viterbi算法搜索每个词条被标注为某种二级结构类型的最大概率, 其中使用词网格描述分词的结果, 使用最大熵马尔科夫模型计算词条的二级结构概率. 蛋白质二级结构预测的结果是最优的分词所对应的二级结构类型. 在4个物种的蛋白质序列上对这种方法进行测试, 并和PHD方法进行比较. 试验结果显示, 这种方法的Q3准确率比PHD方法高3.9%, SOV准确率比PHD方法高4.6%. 结合BLAST搜索的局部相似的序列可以进一步提高预测的准确率. 在50个CASP5目标蛋白质序列上进行测试的结果是: Q3准确率为78.9%, SOV准确率为77.1%. 基于这种方法建立了一个蛋白质二级结构预测的服务器, 可以通过http://www.insun.hit.edu.cn:81/demos/biology/index.html来访问.     

氨基酸组成聚类、蛋白质结构型和结构型的预测

用信息聚类方法对蛋白质的氨基酸组成进行聚类,发现存在梯级成团（大集团分解成小集团）现象,６４５个蛋白质可分成１５个小集团,每一个小集团与蛋白质二级结构含量决定的结构型有一定相关性,但与蛋白质五大结构型相关性不明显。指出了由氨基酸成分和二级结构含量预测结构型的方案中存在的问题。提出了由蛋白质二级结构序列预测蛋白质结构型的新方法,并给出了预测蛋白质结构型的简明预测规则     

基于离散增量的支持向量机算法预测蛋白质中四类简单超二级结构

蛋白质超二级结构预测是三级结构预测的一个非常重要的中间步骤。本文从蛋白质的一级序列出发,对5793个蛋白质中的四类简单超二级结构进行预测,以位点氨基酸为参数,采用3种片段截取方式,分别用离散增量算法预测的结果不理想,将组合的离散增量值作为特征参数输入支持向量机,取得了较好的预测结果,5交叉检验的平均预测总精度达到83.0%,Matthew’s相关系数在0.71以上。     

用人工神经网络方法预测蛋白质超二级结构

蛋白质超二级结构,即由α－螺旋和β－折叠等二级结构单元和连接短肽组成的超二级结构,是蛋白质结构研究中的一个重要层次。目前蛋白质超二级结构的预测工作尚属摸索阶段,还没有成熟的方法。人工神经网络预测方法是近年来在二级结构预测中发展起来的新方法。本文成功的将人工神经网络引入蛋白质超二级结构的预测工作中,结果表明蛋白质的超二级结构的发生与其局域的氨基酸的序列模式有重要联系,可以由蛋白质的一级结构序列预测该     

蛋白质二级结构预测样本集数据库的设计与实现

将数据库技术应用到蛋白质二级结构预测的样本集处理和分析上,建立了二级结构预测样本集数据库。以CB513样本集为例介绍了该数据库的构建模式。构建样本数据库不仅便于存储、管理和检索数据,还可以完成一些简单的序列分析工作,取代许多以往必须的编程。从而大大提高了工作效率,减少错误的发生。     

Finding motifs in protein secondary structure for use in function prediction.

This paper presents a novel algorithm for the discovery of biological sequence motifs. Our motivation is the prediction of gene function. We seek to discover motifs and combinations of motifs in the secondary structure of proteins for application to the understanding and prediction of functional classes. The motifs found by our algorithm allow both flexible length structural elements and flexible length gaps and can be of arbitrary length. The algorithm is based on neither top-down nor bottom-up search, but rather is dichotomic. It is also "anytime," so that fixed termination of the search is not necessary. We have applied our algorithm to yeast sequence data to discover rules predicting function classes from secondary structure. These resultant rules are informative, consistent with known biology, and a contribution to scientific knowledge. Surprisingly, the rules also demonstrate that secondary structure prediction algorithms are effective for membrane proteins and suggest that the association between secondary structure and function is stronger in membrane proteins than globular ones. We demonstrate that our algorithm can successfully predict gene function directly from predicted secondary structure; e.g., we correctly predict the gene YGL124c to be involved in the functional class "cytoplasmic and nuclear degradation." Datasets and detailed results (generated motifs, rules, evaluation on test dataset, and predictions on unknown dataset) are available at www.aber.ac.uk/compsci/Research/bio/dss/yeast.ss.mips/, and www.genepredictions.org.     

Toward better understanding of protein secondary structure: extracting prediction rules

Although numerous computational techniques have been applied to predict protein secondary structure (PSS), only limited studies have dealt with discovery of logic rules underlying the prediction itself. Such rules offer interesting links between the prediction model and the underlying biology. In addition, they enhance interpretability of PSS prediction by providing a degree of transparency to the predicting model usually regarded as a black box. In this paper, we explore the generation and use of C4.5 decision trees to extract relevant rules from PSS predictions modeled with two-stage support vector machines (TS-SVM). The proposed rules were derived on the RS126 data set of 126 nonhomologous globular proteins and on the PSIPRED data set of 1,923 protein sequences. Our approach has produced sets of comprehensible, and often interpretable, rules underlying the PSS predictions. Moreover, many of the rules seem to be strongly supported by biological evidence. Further, our approach resulted in good prediction accuracy, few and usually compact rules, and rules that are generally of higher confidence levels than those generated by other rule extraction techniques.     

The single strand conformational analysis of cattle and human single nucleotide polymorphisms may be biased towards specific sequence motifs that minimize local secondary structure of single strand DNA

Single strand conformational polymorphisms (SSCP) resulting from point mutations were found to be associated preferentially with two DNA sequence motifs. These motifs are (1) three or more of the same base but in which the polymorphism is not due to length variation and (2) a region of polypurine or polypyrimidine bases. These motifs were identified after SSCP alleles from cattle were sequenced. The sequence difference and flanking sequence for each single nucleotide polymorphism are shown. The motifs were also found in SSCP from humans chosen at random from the literature, in which the alleles had been sequenced. There is a low level of complementarity of adjacent bases in these motifs and they should represent regions of low secondary structure in the single stranded DNA. Regions of high secondary structure, such as palindromes, were found in the same sample to have allelic variation that was not detected by SSC analysis. These results give a rule of thumb for selecting the particular part of a DNA fragment to be selected for testing for polymorphisms, but this rule clashes with rules used to design primers to amplify sequences using the PCR, namely, minimise hydrogen bonding within and between primers and reduce self-complementarity.     

Distributions of beta sheets in proteins with application to structure prediction

We recently developed the Rosetta algorithm for ab initio protein structure prediction, which generates protein structures from fragment libraries using simulated annealing. The scoring function in this algorithm favors the assembly of strands into sheets. However, it does not discriminate between different sheet motifs. After generating many structures using Rosetta, we found that the folding algorithm predominantly generates very local structures. We surveyed the distribution of beta-sheet motifs with two edge strands (open sheets) in a large set of non-homologous proteins. We investigated how much of that distribution can be accounted for by rules previously published in the literature, and developed a filter and a scoring method that enables us to improve protein structure prediction for beta-sheet proteins. Proteins 2002;48:85-97.     

Arrangement of 3D structural motifs in ribosomal RNA

Structural 3D motifs in RNA play an important role in the RNA stability and function. Previous studies have focused on the characterization and discovery of 3D motifs in RNA secondary and tertiary structures. However, statistical analyses of the distribution of 3D motifs along the RNA appear to be lacking. Herein, we present a novel strategy for evaluating the distribution of 3D motifs along the RNA chain and those motifs whose distributions are significantly non-random are identified. By applying it to the X-ray structure of the large ribosomal subunit from Haloarcula marismortui, helical motifs were found to cluster together along the chain and in the 3D structure, whereas the known tetraloops tend to be sequentially and spatially dispersed. That the distribution of key structural motifs such as tetraloops differ significantly from a random one suggests that our method could also be used to detect novel 3D motifs of any size in sufficiently long/large RNA structures. The motif distribution type can help in the prediction and design of 3D structures of large RNA molecules.     

Knowledge-based prediction of protein structures

We propose a knowledge-based approach to the prediction of protein structures in cases where there is no sequence-homology to proteins with known spatial structure. Using methods from Artificial Intelligence we attempt to take into account long-range interactions within the prediction process. This allows not only the assignment of secondary but also of supersecondary structure elements. In particular, the patterns used as conditions of prediction rules are generated by learning methods from information contained in the Protein Data Base. Patterns on higher levels of the protein structure hierarchy are used as constraints to reduce the combinatorial search space. These patterns may also be used to search for specified structure motifs by interactive retrieval.     

Bayesian data mining of protein domains gives an efficient predictive algorithm and new insight

Identification of structural domains in uncharacterized protein sequences is important in the prediction of protein tertiary folds and functional sites, and hence in designing biologically active molecules. We present a new predictive computational method of classifying a protein into single, two continuous or two discontinuous domains using Bayesian Data Mining. The algorithm requires only the primary sequence and computer-predicted secondary structure. It incorporates correlation patterns between certain 3-dimensional motifs and some local helical folds found conserved in the vicinity of protein domains with high statistical confidence. The prediction of domain-class by this computationally simple and fast method shows good accuracy of prediction-average accuracies 83.3% for single domain, 60% for two continuous and 65.7% for two discontinuous domain proteins. Experiments on the large validation sample show its performance to be significantly better than that of DGS and DomSSEA. Computations of Bayesian probabilities show important features in terms of correlation of certain conserved patterns of secondary folds and tertiary motifs and give new insight. Applications for improved accuracy of predicting domain boundary points relevant to protein structural and functional modeling are also highlighted.     

Evaluation of the information content in infrared spectra for protein secondary structure determination

Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy is a method of choice for the experimental determination of protein secondary structure. Numerous approaches have been developed during the past 15 years. A critical parameter that has not been taken into account systematically is the selection of the wavenumbers used for building the mathematical models used for structure prediction. The high quality of the current Fourier-transform infrared spectrometers makes the absorbance at every single wavenumber a valid and almost noiseless type of information. We address here the question of the amount of independent information present in the infrared spectra of proteins for the prediction of the different secondary structure contents. It appears that, at most, the absorbance at three distinct frequencies of the spectra contain all the nonredundant information that can be related to one secondary structure content. The ascending stepwise method proposed here identifies the relevance of each wavenumber of the infrared spectrum for the prediction of a given secondary structure and yields a particularly simple method for computing the secondary structure content. Using the 50-protein database built beforehand to contain as little fold redundancy as possible, the standard error of prediction in cross-validation is 5.5% for the alpha-helix, 6.6% for the beta-sheet, and 3.4% for the beta-turn.