Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Can sequence determine function?

J A Gerlt1, P C Babbitt

  • 1Departments of Biochemistry and Chemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. j-gerlt@uiuc.edu

Genome Biology
|February 24, 2001
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Members of a Novel Kinase Family (DUF1537) Can Recycle Toxic Intermediates into an Essential Metabolite.

ACS chemical biology·2016
Same author

Conservation of caspase substrates across metazoans suggests hierarchical importance of signaling pathways over specific targets and cleavage site motifs in apoptosis.

Cell death and differentiation·2012
Same author

Sleeping beauty mutase (sbm) is expressed and interacts with ygfd in Escherichia coli.

Microbiological research·2008
Same author

Evolution of enzymatic activities in the enolase superfamily: functional assignment of unknown proteins in Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli as L-Ala-D/L-Glu epimerases.

Biochemistry·2001
Same author

Evolution of enzymatic activities in the enolase superfamily: crystal structures of the L-Ala-D/L-Glu epimerases from Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis.

Biochemistry·2001
Same author

Evolution of enzymatic activities in the enolase superfamily: identification of the general acid catalyst in the active site of D-glucarate dehydratase from Escherichia coli.

Biochemistry·2001
Same journal

Integrated lipidomic and transcriptomic profiling of the host response in human malaria.

Genome biology·2026
Same journal

Centromeric satellite expansion drives genome evolution in the snowy owl.

Genome biology·2026
Same journal

Mapping the landscape of allele-specific expression in porcine genomes.

Genome biology·2026
Same journal

Genomic sequence evolution underlying human neocortical interareal diversification.

Genome biology·2026
Same journal

Regulatory mechanisms driven by functional 3'-UTR variants in alcohol use disorder and related traits.

Genome biology·2026
Same journal

A longitudinal single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of bovine placentation reveals dynamic cellular hierarchies and regulatory programs.

Genome biology·2026
See all related articles

Assigning protein function solely on sequence similarity can be unreliable due to divergent evolution. Homologous enzymes may perform different reactions, warranting caution in sequence-based functional annotation.

Area of Science:

  • Bioinformatics
  • Genomics
  • Enzymology

Background:

  • Functional annotation of proteins is crucial for understanding biological systems.
  • Genome sequencing projects yield vast amounts of protein data requiring functional characterization.
  • Current methods often rely on homology searches against existing databases.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the reliability of inferring protein function based solely on sequence similarity.
  • To highlight the potential pitfalls of functional annotation derived from homologous proteins.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of protein sequences and known functions.
  • Examination of enzyme catalysis across homologous protein families.
  • Literature review on divergent evolution and functional divergence.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Homologous enzymes, despite sequence similarity, frequently catalyze different biochemical reactions.
  • Functional annotation based on sequence homology alone can lead to inaccurate assignments.
  • Divergent evolution poses a significant challenge to accurate protein function prediction.

Conclusions:

  • Protein functional annotation requires more than just sequence similarity.
  • Skepticism is warranted when assigning function based solely on sequence information.
  • Experimental validation is essential to confirm predicted protein functions.