Back to results

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Localized methods for protein interaction prediction

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Identification of protein-protein interactions is important for drug design and the treatment of diseases. We propose a novel threading algorithm, LTHREADER, which generates accurate local sequence-structure alignments and integrates various statistical scores and experimental binding data to predict interactions. LTHREADER uses a profile of secondary structure and solvent accessibility predictions with residue contact maps to guide and constrain alignments. Using a decision tree classifier and low-throughput experimental data for training, it combines information inferred from statistical interaction potentials, energy functions, correlated mutations and conserved residue pairs to predict likely interactions. The significance of predicted interactions is evaluated using the scores for randomized binding surfaces within each family. We first apply our method to cytokines, which play a central role in the development of many diseases including cancer and inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. We tested our approach on two representative families from different structural classes (all-alpha and all-beta proteins) of cytokines. In comparison with the state-of-the-art threader RAPTOR, LTHREADER generates on average 20% more accurate alignments of interacting residues and shows dramatic improvement in prediction accuracy over existing methods. To further improve alignment accuracy for all PPI families, we also introduce the program CMAPi, a two dimensional dynamic programming algorithm that, given a pair of protein complexes, optimally aligns the contact maps of their interfaces. We demonstrate the efficacy of our algorithm on complexes from PPI families listed in the SCOPPI database and from highly divergent cytokine families. In comparison to existing techniques, CMAPi generates more accurate alignments of interacting residues within families of interacting proteins, especially for sequences with low similarity.

Degree

thesis:*
Department dc:contributor.department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Year dc:date.issued
2008

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Pulim, Vinay, 1976-
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Bonnie Berger.

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
Language dc:language.iso
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44715
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44715

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
MIT
Base URL
dspace.mit.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Pulim, Vinay, 1976-. Localized methods for protein interaction prediction. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44715