Skolnick J, Fetrow J S, Kolinski A
Laboratory of Computational Genomics, The Danforth Plant Science Center, 893 N, Warson Rd., St. Louis, MO 63141, USA.
Nat Biotechnol. 2000 Mar;18(3):283-7. doi: 10.1038/73723.
Structural genomics projects aim to solve the experimental structures of all possible protein folds. Such projects entail a conceptual shift from traditional structural biology in which structural information is obtained on known proteins to one in which the structure of a protein is determined first and the function assigned only later. Whereas the goal of converting protein structure into function can be accomplished by traditional sequence motif-based approaches, recent studies have shown that assignment of a protein's biochemical function can also be achieved by scanning its structure for a match to the geometry and chemical identity of a known active site. Importantly, this approach can use low-resolution structures provided by contemporary structure prediction methods. When applied to genomes, structural information (either experimental or predicted) is likely to play an important role in high-throughput function assignment.
结构基因组学项目旨在解析所有可能的蛋白质折叠的实验结构。此类项目需要从传统结构生物学进行概念转变，在传统结构生物学中，结构信息是从已知蛋白质上获取的，而现在是先确定蛋白质的结构，之后才赋予其功能。虽然将蛋白质结构转化为功能的目标可以通过传统的基于序列基序的方法实现，但最近的研究表明，通过扫描蛋白质结构以寻找与已知活性位点的几何形状和化学特性相匹配之处，也能够实现蛋白质生化功能的赋予。重要的是，这种方法可以使用当代结构预测方法提供的低分辨率结构。当应用于基因组时，结构信息（无论是实验性的还是预测性的）可能在高通量功能赋予中发挥重要作用。
