PSC

PSC classifies proteins by their functional surfaces to identify and organize structural and functional relationships among proteins for studies of molecular function and evolutionary divergence.

Key Features:

• Functional-surface classification: Classifies proteins based on structural attributes of functional surfaces that mediate biological activity.
• Surface library content: Contains 1,974 distinct surface types comprising 25,857 functional surfaces derived from 24,170 bound protein structures.
• Pairwise relationship inference: Analyzes and infers pairwise relationships among proteins through comparison of surface characteristics to build an expandable repository of related surfaces.
• Structural descriptors: Encodes geometric, physicochemical, and evolutionary features and normalizes them into descriptors to form cohesive profiles for each functional surface.
• Binding ligand annotation: Records binding ligands associated with functional surfaces to support comparative analyses among homologous proteins.
• Related-surface identification: Identifies related surfaces characterized by similar local structures and core functions.

Scientific Applications:

• Protein evolution analysis: Facilitates examination of residue variation on functional surfaces to study evolutionary divergence of protein function.
• Functional divergence investigation: Highlights substitutions at key residues within spatial patterns that may drive functional evolution.
• Comparative surface analysis: Provides a pool of observed residue changes on similar functional surfaces for comparative studies of molecular adaptation and mechanism.

Methodology:

PSC analyzes structural attributes of functional surfaces, infers pairwise relationships among proteins, normalizes geometric, physicochemical, and evolutionary features into descriptors to create surface profiles, records associated binding ligands, and organizes these relationships in an expandable repository while identifying related surfaces by local structural and core functional similarity.