The Bioinformatics Colloquium meets on Tuesdays, at 4:30 pm in the
Auditorium in PW2 on the Prince William Campus. Refreshments are served
at 3:00pm in Room 110H, PW1.  All are invited.

Date: Sep 2, 2003
Time: 4:30pm
Place: PW2 Auditorium, Prince William Campus
Speaker: Ruth Nussinov, NCI / Tel Aviv University

Title: Protein Interactions: Binding and Folding

Abstract:

The availability of a computer-vision based amino acid sequence
order-independent structural comparison technique enabled a construction
of a dataset of protein-protein interfaces abd its comparison to a
dataset of protein chains.  The protein-protein interfaces are derived
from two-chain complexes.  Despite the absence of chain connectivity,
the global features of the architectures, hydrophobicity and compact
hydrophobic units in protein-protein interfaces resemble those of
protein cores.  The general similarity in the forces governing protein
folding and protein-protein binding is consistent with hierarchical
protein folding.  This has led us to develop the building block folding
model.  According to this model, fluctuating relatively stable building
blocks are formed first.  Through conformational selection, they
hierarchically assemble into higher order protein structures,
hydrophobic folding units, domains and entire folds.  This model leads
us to develop a scheme which in principle may reduce the computational
complexity of protein folding.  We have further applied this model to
protein design.  Preliminary results for folding and design will be
presented.