The global trace graph, a novel paradigm for searching protein sequence databases

Propagating functional annotations to sequence-similar, presumably homologous proteins lies at the heart of the bioinformatics industry. Correct propagation is crucially dependent on the accurate identification of subtle sequence motifs that are conserved in evolution. The evolutionary signal can be difficult to detect because functional sites may consist of non-contiguous residues while segments in-between may be mutated without affecting fold or function.