Protein functional-group 3D motif and its applications

Representing and recognizing protein active sites sequence motif (1D motif) and structural motif (3D motif) is an important topic for predicting and designing protein function. Prevalent methods for extracting and searching 3D motif always consider residue as the minimal unit, which have limited sensitivity. Here we present a new spatial representation of protein active sites, called "functional-group 3D motif", based on the fact that the functional groups inside a residue contribute mostly to its function. Relevant algorithm and computer program are developed, which could be widely used in the function prediction and the study of structural-function relationship of proteins. As a test, we defined a functional-group 3D motif of the catalytic triad and oxyanion hole with the structure of porcine trypsin (PDB code: 1mct) as the template. With our motif-searching program, we successfully found similar sub-structures in trypsins, subtilisins and α/β hydrolases, which show distinct folds but share similar