Patent ID: 7445912

Claim:
A method for identifying a residue pair in a polypeptide chain or chains that, following substitution of at least one selected residue with tyrosine and cross-linking, is least likely to be disruptive of the overall protein structure, the method comprising using one or more statistical criteria selected from the group consisting of statistical filter one through statistical filter eight, wherein each statistical filter selects suitable, or eliminates unsuitable, residue pairs based on statistical evaluation of measurements made across a sample of aligned residues of structurally, functionally, or both structurally and functionally related proteins, protein complexes or fragments thereof, which statistical evaluations of each filter are as follows: Filter 1: mean, median, or mode of residue pairs' alpha-carbon distance; Filter 2: standard deviation, variance, maximum, or minimum of residue pairs' alpha-carbon distance; Filter 3: mean, median, or mode of measurements relating to the three-dimensional orientations of the side-chains of residue pairs; Filter 4: standard deviation, variance, maximum, or minimum of measurements relating to the three-dimensional orientations of the side-chains of residue pairs; Filter 5: mean, median, or mode of physical measurements of either of the side-chains of residue pairs; Filter 6: standard deviation, variance, maximum, or minimum of physical measurements of either of the side-chains of residue pairs; Filter 7: mean, median, mode, standard deviation, variance, maximum, or minimum of physical measurements of side-chains in three-dimensional or sequence proximity to either of the side-chains of residue pairs; and Filter 8: degree of amino acid conservation or identity of one or both residues of residue pairs.