DALI and the persistence of protein shape

Area of Science:

• Structural biology
• Bioinformatics
• Computational biology

Background:

• The DALI server has been a continuous resource for 25 years.
• It is a popular tool for comparing protein structures.
• Genomics and structural genomics data are integrated and organized by the server.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the utility and longevity of the DALI server.
• To explain the DALI method for protein structure comparison.
• To present DALI's performance in evaluating alignment accuracy and fold discrimination.

Main Methods:

• Distance-matrix alignment algorithm.
• Web server for data navigation and integration.
• Meta-analysis of independent evaluations.

Main Results:

• DALI consistently ranks highly in protein structure comparison tasks.
• It achieved top ranks in six out of 12 independent studies.
• The server has been operational for 25 years, demonstrating reliability.

Conclusions:

• DALI is a robust and reliable tool for structural biologists.
• It aids in identifying distant homologies and understanding molecular mechanisms.
• The DALI server and software are valuable resources for the scientific community.