Assessing the accuracy of ancestral protein reconstruction methods.

ABSTRACT: The phylogenetic inference of ancestral protein sequences is a powerful technique for the study of molecular evolution, but any conclusions drawn from such studies are only as good as the accuracy of the reconstruction method. Every inference method leads to errors in the ancestral protein sequence, resulting in potentially misleading estimates of the ancestral protein's properties. To assess the accuracy of ancestral protein reconstruction methods, we performed computational population evolution simulations featuring near-neutral evolution under purifying selection, speciation, and divergence using an off-lattice protein model where fitness depends on the ability to be stable in a specified target structure. We were thus able to compare the thermodynamic properties of the true ancestral s

SUBMITTER: Williams PD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1480538 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature