Bayesian refinement of protein functional site matching

Background: Matching functional sites is a key problem for the understanding of protein function and evolution. The commonly used graph theoretic approach, and other related approaches, require adjustment of a matching distance threshold a priori according to the noise in atomic positions. This is difficult to pre-determine when matching sites related by varying evolutionary distances and crystallographic precision. Furthermore, sometimes the graph method is unable to identify alternative but important solutions in the neighbourhood of the distance based solution because of strict distance constraints. We consider the Bayesian approach to improve graph based solutions. In principle this approach applies to other methods with strict distance matching constraints. The Bayesian method can flexibly incorporate all types of prior information on specific binding sites (e.g. amino acid types) in contrast to combinatorial formulations. Results: We present a new meta-algorithm for matching pro...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Kanti V. Mardia, Vysaul B. Nyirongo, Peter J. Green, Nicola D. Gold, David R. Westhead
• Keywords: BMCBI 2007, Functional Sites, Graph Method, Strict Distance