Representativity of target families in the Protein Data Bank: impact for family-directed structure-based drug discovery
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 2, 2026

A Protocol for Computer-Based Protein Structure and Function Prediction
Published on: November 3, 2011
1Chemogenomics Laboratory, Research Unit on Biomedical Informatics, Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08003 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. jmestres@imim.es
Abstract:
Analysis of the population of enzyme structures in the Protein Data Bank across all levels of the functional classification based on enzyme commission (EC) numbers reveals that, in spite of the almost exponential growth in the number of structures deposited, progress in achieving complete occupancy at all EC levels is relatively slow. Moreover, inspection of the distribution of the population among the members of the different enzyme families uncovers a strong bias towards enzymes widely recognized as therapeutically relevant targets. The low representativity levels identified in some target families warn on the current scope and applicability of structure-based approaches to family-directed strategies in drug discovery.
More Related Videos
08:49Incorporating Target Protein Structure Flexibility and Dynamics in Computational Drug Discovery Using Ensemble-Based Docking Analysis
Published on: June 20, 2025
05:08Application of I TASSER, trRosetta, UCSF Chimera, HADDOCK server, and HEX loria for De Novo and In Silico Design of Proteins
Published on: July 8, 2025
Related Concept Videos
Gene Families
Occasionally these regions can be adapted to take on new roles within the organism, becoming novel genes...
Protein Families
Protein-protein Interfaces
Conserved Binding Sites
Binding sites are often located in large pockets, and if their location on a protein’s surface is unknown, it can be predicted using various approaches. The energetic method computationally analyses the...
Protein Organization
The primary structure of a protein is its amino acid sequence.
Pharmacogenomics: Identification of New Drug Targets