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Carbohydrate‐binding protein identification by coupling structural similarity searching with binding affinity prediction
Author(s) -
Zhao Huiying,
Yang Yuedong,
von Itzstein Mark,
Zhou Yaoqi
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of computational chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.907
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1096-987X
pISSN - 0192-8651
DOI - 10.1002/jcc.23730
Subject(s) - matthews correlation coefficient , computational biology , structural similarity , chemistry , protein structure , similarity (geometry) , biochemistry , biology , artificial intelligence , computer science , support vector machine , image (mathematics)
Carbohydrate-binding proteins (CBPs) are potential biomarkers and drug targets. However, the interactions between carbohydrates and proteins are challenging to study experimentally and computationally because of their low binding affinity, high flexibility, and the lack of a linear sequence in carbohydrates as exists in RNA, DNA, and proteins. Here, we describe a structure-based function-prediction technique called SPOT-Struc that identifies carbohydrate-recognizing proteins and their binding amino acid residues by structural alignment program SPalign and binding affinity scoring according to a knowledge-based statistical potential based on the distance-scaled finite-ideal gas reference state (DFIRE). The leave-one-out cross-validation of the method on 113 carbohydrate-binding domains and 3442 noncarbohydrate binding proteins yields a Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.56 for SPalign alone and 0.63 for SPOT-Struc (SPalign + binding affinity scoring) for CBP prediction. SPOT-Struc is a technique with high positive predictive value (79% correct predictions in all positive CBP predictions) with a reasonable sensitivity (52% positive predictions in all CBPs). The sensitivity of the method was changed slightly when applied to 31 APO (unbound) structures found in the protein databank (14/31 for APO versus 15/31 for HOLO). The result of SPOT-Struc will not change significantly if highly homologous templates were used. SPOT-Struc predicted 19 out of 2076 structural genome targets as CBPs. In particular, one uncharacterized protein in Bacillus subtilis (1oq1A) was matched to galectin-9 from Mus musculus. Thus, SPOT-Struc is useful for uncovering novel carbohydrate-binding proteins. SPOT-Struc is available at http://sparks-lab.org.