Library of local descriptors models the core of proteins accurately.

In this article, we present a novel approach to describing proteins based on multifragment structure motifs called local descriptors. We collect structurally similar descriptors in groups to construct a compact library of groups of descriptors. To demonstrate its feasibility for a wide spectrum of applications, ranging from structure comparison and analysis to structure prediction, it is critical to show the ability of groups from our library to reproduce proteins accurately.