TopMatch-web: pairwise matching of large assemblies of protein and nucleic acid chains in 3D.

Frequently, the complete functional units of biological molecules are assemblies of protein and nucleic acid chains. Stunning examples are the complex structures of ribosomes. Here, we present TopMatch-web, a computational tool for the study of the three-dimensional structure, function and evolution of such molecules.

Repeat proteins challenge the concept of structural domains.

Structural domains are believed to be modules within proteins that can fold and function independently. Some proteins show tandem repetitions of apparent modular structure that do not fold independently, but rather co-operate in stabilizing structural forms that comprise several repeat-units. For many natural repeat-proteins, it has been shown that weak energetic links between repeats lead to the breakdown of co-operativity and the appearance of folding sub-domains within an apparently regular repeat array.

Structure-based characterization of multiprotein complexes.

Multiprotein complexes govern virtually all cellular processes. Their 3D structures provide important clues to their biological roles, especially through structural correlations among protein molecules and complexes. The detection of such correlations generally requires comprehensive searches in databases of known protein structures by means of appropriate structure-matching techniques.

Detecting repetitions and periodicities in proteins by tiling the structural space.

The notion of energy landscapes provides conceptual tools for understanding the complexities of protein folding and function. Energy landscape theory indicates that it is much easier to find sequences that satisfy the "Principle of Minimal Frustration" when the folded structure is symmetric (Wolynes, P. G.

Towards the development of standardized methods for comparison, ranking and evaluation of structure alignments.

Motivation: Pairwise alignment of protein structures is a fundamental task in structural bioinformatics. There are numerous computer programs in the public domain that produce alignments for a given pair of protein structures, but the results obtained by the various programs generally differ substantially. Hence, in the application of such programs the question arises which of the alignment programs are the most trustworthy in the sense of overall performance, and which programs provide the best result for a given pair of proteins.