Structural genomics or structural bioinformatics refers to the analysis of macromolecular structure particularly proteins. Structural genomics includes the experimental determination of structures using X-ray crystallography and NMR techniques, while structural bioinformatics uses computational tools and theoretical frameworks. It is a recent discipline which overlaps with structural biology and genomics. One of the goals of structural genomics is the extension of idea of genomics, to obtain accurate three-dimensional structural models for all known protein families, protein domains or protein folds. Structural alignment is a tool of structural genomics. A macromolecule is a molecule of high relative molecular mass, the structure of which essentially comprises the multiple repetition of units derived, actually or conceptually, from molecules of low relative molecular mass. ... A representation of the 3D structure of myoglobin, showing coloured alpha helices. ... Structural biology is a branch of molecular biology concerned with the study of the architecture and shape of biological macromolecules--proteins and nucleic acids in particular—and what causes them to have the structures they have. ... Genomics is the study of an organisms genome and the use of the genes. ... Genomics is the study of an organisms genome and the use of the genes. ... Dimension (from Latin measured out) is, in essence, the number of degrees of freedom available for movement in a space. ... A representation of the 3D structure of myoglobin, showing coloured alpha helices. ... Within a protein, a structural domain (domain) is an element of overall structure that is self-stabilizing and often folds independently of the rest of the protein chain. ... Protein structural alignment is a form of alignment which tries to establish equivalences between two or more protein structures based on their fold. ...
The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is a repository for 3-D structural data of proteins and nucleic acids. ... SCOP can refer to Structural Classification of Proteins A scop was an Old English poet, the Anglo-Saxon counterpart of the Old Norse skald. ...
References
Books
Bourne, Weissig (2003) Structural Bioinformatics, Wiley ISBN 0-471-20199-5
Hallmark publications
Richardson, J.S. (1981) "The anatomy and taxonomy of protein structure". Adv. Protein Chem., 34, 167-339.
G.N. Ramachandran, C. Ramakrishnan, and V. Sasisekharan. "Stereochemistry of polypeptide chain configurations". J. Mol. Biol., 7:95-9, 1963.
G.N. Ramachandran and V. Sasisekharan. "Conformation of polypeptides and proteins". Adv. Protein Chem., 23:283-438, 1968.
Structuralgenomics involves the determination of the 3-D structure of all proteins and RNA molecules encoded in the genomic sequences of living organisms.
Another key area of research in structuralgenomics is the determination of the structure of membrane proteins which play critical roles in cell function and are implicated in many major diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
However, bottlenecks in the technical pipeline from preparing structure samples to analysing structural data have meant that until recently these technologies were not allowing a sufficiently high throughput of samples to optimise determination of the structures of the thousands of macromolecules still to be solved.
When a number of genomes have been characterized at the structural level, the hope is that, through comparative genomics, it will become possible to deduce the general rules that govern the overall structural organization of all genomes.
Structuralgenomics proceeds through increasing levels of analytic resolution, starting with the assignment of genes and markers to individual chromosomes, then the mapping of these genes and markers within a chromosome, and finally the preparation of a physical map culminating in sequencing.
Genomic DNA was mechanically sheared and used to obtain a large number of random clones that were presumed to overlap each other in numerous ways.
Feeds |
Contact