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Updated: May 20, 2026

Investigating Protein Sequence-structure-dynamics Relationships with Bio3D-web
Published on: July 16, 2017
Information properties of naturally-occurring proteins: Fourier analysis and complexity phase plots
Daniel J Graham1, Shelby Grzetic, Donald May
1Department of Chemistry, Loyola University Chicago, 6525 North Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60626, USA. dgraha1@luc.edu
Abstract:
In previous work from this lab, the information in natural proteins was investigated with Ribonuclease A (RNase A) serving as the source. The signature traits were investigated at three structure levels: primary through tertiary. The present paper travels further by charting the primary structure information of about half a million molecules. This was feasible given abundant sequence archives for both living and viral systems. Notably, a method is presented for evaluating primary structure information, based on Fourier analysis and spectral complexity. Significantly, the results show certain complexity traits to be universal for living sources. Viruses, by contrast, encode protein collections which are case-specific and complexity-divergent. The results have ramifications for discriminating collections on the basis of sequence information. This discrimination offers new strategies for selecting drug targets.
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