In silico evaluation of the influence of the translocon on partitioning of membrane segments
The locations of the TM segments inside the membrane proteins are the consequence of a cascade of several events: the localizing of the nascent chain to the membrane, its insertion through the translocon, and the conformation adopted to reach its stable state inside the lipid bilayer. Even though the hydrophobic h-region of signal peptides and a typical TM segment are both composed of mostly hydrophobic side chains, the translocon has the ability to determine whether a given segment is to be inserted into the membrane. Our goal is to acquire robust biological insights into the influence of the translocon on membrane insertion of helices, obtained from the in silico discrimination between signal peptides and transmembrane segments of bitopic proteins. Therefore, by exploiting this subtle difference, we produce an optimized scale that evaluates the tendency of each amino acid to form sequences destined for membrane insertion by the translocon.
translocon transmembrane helix prediction local search algorithm