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Exploring Human Diseases and Biological Mechanisms by Protein Structure Prediction and Modeling

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Translational Biomedical Informatics

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 939))

Abstract

Protein structure prediction and modeling provide a tool for understanding protein functions by computationally constructing protein structures from amino acid sequences and analyzing them. With help from protein prediction tools and web servers, users can obtain the three-dimensional protein structure models and gain knowledge of functions from the proteins. In this chapter, we will provide several examples of such studies. As an example, structure modeling methods were used to investigate the relation between mutation-caused misfolding of protein and human diseases including epilepsy and leukemia. Protein structure prediction and modeling were also applied in nucleotide-gated channels and their interaction interfaces to investigate their roles in brain and heart cells. In molecular mechanism studies of plants, rice salinity tolerance mechanism was studied via structure modeling on crucial proteins identified by systems biology analysis; trait-associated protein-protein interactions were modeled, which sheds some light on the roles of mutations in soybean oil/protein content. In the age of precision medicine, we believe protein structure prediction and modeling will play more and more important roles in investigating biomedical mechanism of diseases and drug design.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Juexin Wang & Dong Xu

  2. Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Juexin Wang, Ning Zhang, Saad Khan & Dong Xu

  3. School of Computing, University of Southern Mississippi, 118 College Drive, Hattiesburg, MS, 39406, USA

    Joseph Luttrell IV & Zheng Wang

  4. Informatics Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Ning Zhang, Saad Khan & Dong Xu

  5. Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Room 8418, 1111 Highland Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    NianQing Shi

  6. Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Michael X. Wang

  7. Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Jing-Qiong Kang

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  1. Juexin Wang
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  2. Joseph Luttrell IV
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  7. Jing-Qiong Kang
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  8. Zheng Wang
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  9. Dong Xu
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Correspondence to Dong Xu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Systems Biology, Soochow University, Jiangsu, China

    Bairong Shen

  2. School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Haixu Tang

  3. Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA

    Xiaoqian Jiang

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Wang, J. et al. (2016). Exploring Human Diseases and Biological Mechanisms by Protein Structure Prediction and Modeling. In: Shen, B., Tang, H., Jiang, X. (eds) Translational Biomedical Informatics. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 939. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1503-8_3

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