The main purpose of our group is to investigate the relations between the amino acid sequence, the three-dimensional structure and the corresponding function of the antibody molecules, as a model of molecular recognition.
Antibodies represent the most diverse and structurally studied family of proteins.
Even, if much is known about of the 'parent' antibody or about the antigen structure. One main achievement in the study of the antigen-antibody interaction was the interpretation in structural terms of the concept of complementarity as the basis of antibody recognition, initially proposed by Erlich and later reviewed by Landsteiner. Moreover, it was shown that the shapes allowed by the combination of canonical structures correlate in some cases with the antigens the antibody interact with. Therefore, these findings give us a heuristic model to relate the amino acid sequence, the three-dimensional structure and the corresponding function of the antibody molecules.