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Updated: Mar 10, 2026

Mapping Dysfunctional Protein-Protein Interactions in Disease
Published on: October 24, 2025
Dataset of eye disease-related proteins analyzed using the unfolding mutation screen
Caitlyn L McCafferty1, Yuri V Sergeev1
1Ophthalmic Genetics and Visual Function Branch, National Eye Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
Abstract:
A number of genetic diseases are a result of missense mutations in protein structure. These mutations can lead to severe protein destabilization and misfolding. The unfolding mutation screen (UMS) is a computational method that calculates unfolding propensities for every possible missense mutation in a protein structure. The UMS validation demonstrated a good agreement with experimental and phenotypical data. 15 protein structures (a combination of homology models and crystal structures) were analyzed using UMS. The standard and clustered heat maps, and patterned protein structure from the analysis were stored in a UMS library. The library is currently composed of 15 protein structures from 14 inherited eye diseases including retina degenerations, glaucoma, and cataracts, and contains data for 181,110 mutations. The UMS protein library introduces 13 new human models of eye disease related proteins and is the first collection of the consistently calculated unfolding propensities, which could be used as a tool for the express analysis of novel mutations in clinical practice, next generation sequencing, and genotype-to-phenotype relationships in inherited eye disease.
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