Patent ID: 6512981
Filing Date: 2003-01-28
Classification: G01N,G16B

Abstract:
A computer-assisted method for assigning an amino acid probe sequence to a known three-dimensional protein structure, including the steps of:(a) receiving into a computer system a string describing the amino acid sequence of the probe sequence; (b) generating, from the amino acid string, at least one sequence-derived property for the amino acid sequence, defined as p1, p2 . . . pn, wherein each p represents the sequence-derived property of a corresponding amino acid of the probe sequence; (c) inputting into the computer system a string t1, t2 . . . tm of structural properties, wherein each t represents the structural property of a corresponding amino acid of the known three-dimensional protein, for each member of a library of known three-dimensional protein structures; (d) executing an alignment algorithm in the computer system to compute an alignment score indicating the optimal alignment of the string p1, p2 . . . pn to the string t1, t2 . . . tm by applying a combined compatibility function g(pi, tj); (e) determining the statistical significance of each alignment score to determine a best-fit alignment score; and (f) applying the best-fit alignment score to indicate or select the corresponding three-dimensional protein structure from the library for output to a user.