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Updated: Aug 10, 2026

A Protocol for Computer-Based Protein Structure and Function Prediction
Published on: November 3, 2011
Blocks-based methods for detecting protein homology
J G Henikoff1, S Pietrokovski, C M McCallum
1Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA. steveh@fhcrc.org
Abstract:
The most highly conserved regions of proteins can be represented as blocks of aligned sequence segments, typically with multiple blocks for a given protein family. The Blocks Database World Wide Web (http://blocks.fhcrc.org) and e-mail (blocks@blocks. fhcrc.org) servers provide tools to search DNA and protein queries against the Blocks+ Database of multiple alignments. We describe features for detection of distant relationships using blocks. Blocks+ includes protein families from the PROSITE, Prints, Pfam-A, ProDom and Domo databases. Other features include searching Blocks+ with the BLIMPS and NCBI's IMPALA programs, sequence logos, phylogenetic trees, three-dimensional display of blocks on PDB structures, and a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primer design strategy based on blocks.
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