Distinguishing proteins from arbitrary amino acid sequences.

ABSTRACT: What kinds of amino acid sequences could possibly be protein sequences? From all existing databases that we can find, known proteins are only a small fraction of all possible combinations of amino acids. Beginning with Sanger's first detailed determination of a protein sequence in 1952, previous studies have focused on describing the structure of existing protein sequences in order to construct the protein universe. No one, however, has developed a criteria for determining whether an arbitrary amino acid sequence can be a protein. Here we show that when the collection of arbitrary amino acid sequences is viewed in an appropriate geometric context, the protein sequences cluster together. This leads to a new computational test, described here, that has proved to be remarkably accurate at det

SUBMITTER: Yau SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4302309 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature