STRUCTURAL GENOMICS OF BACTERIAL PROTEINS

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中利用 资源由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 调查员(PI)可能从NIH的另一个来源获得了主要资金， 并因此可以在其他清晰的条目中表示。列出的机构是 该中心不一定是调查人员的机构。 通过比较来自全序列基因组的蛋白质序列，可以将氨基酸序列聚类到相关家族中。一个序列家族的蛋白质成员的结构都将是相似的。虽然确定所有蛋白质的结构是一个不合理的目标，但确定每个序列家族的一个结构是一个可以实现的目标，也是NIH蛋白质结构倡议的目标。大规模的测序和结构确定工作将提供广泛的背景信息，并引出这样一个问题：这些蛋白质的生物学作用是什么？那些在许多差异很大的物种中具有同源基因的基因必须在某些条件下发挥重要作用，才能通过进化得到如此广泛的保留，并且它们很可能在这些不同的有机体中具有相关功能。因此，排序工作指出 如果我们要利用序列信息来扩大我们对生物学的理解，那么这些重要的蛋白质相对来说是没有特征的，需要进一步的研究。下一个合乎逻辑的步骤是确定这些蛋白质的生化功能。我们感兴趣的是利用蛋白质结构来辅助计算和实验方法，以确定未知或功能不明确的蛋白质的可能配体。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Comparison of protein sequences from completely sequenced genomes allows the clustering of the amino acid sequences into related families. The structures of the protein members of a sequence family will all be similar. While determining the structures of all proteins is an unreasonable aim, the determination of one structure from each sequence family is an attainable goal and the aim of the NIH Protein Structure Initiative. The large scale sequencing and structure determination efforts are going to provide extensive background information and lead to the question: What are the biological roles of these proteins? Those that have homologues in many widely divergent species must play an important role under some conditions in order to have been so widely retained through evolution and they are likely to have related functions in these diverse organisms. The sequencing efforts thus point out important proteins that are relatively uncharacterized and that require further investigation if we are to utilize the sequence information to expand our understanding of biology. The next logical step is to determine the biochemical functions of such proteins. We are interested in using protein structure to aid computational and experimental approaches to identifying possible ligands for proteins of unknown, or poorly defined function.