Dark Proteome Database: Studies on Disorder
Nelson Perdigão1, Pedro M C Pina1, Cátia Rocha1
1Instituto de Sistemas e Robótica, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal.
High-Throughput
|July 8, 2020
Summary
Intrinsic protein disorder is often mistakenly equated with darkness. This study confirms that protein disorder and darkness are largely unrelated, using Swiss-Prot and Dark Proteome data.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry
- Proteomics
- Bioinformatics
Background:
- Proteins can exhibit intrinsic disorder, lacking a stable three-dimensional structure.
- The concept of 'dark proteins' refers to proteins with uncharacterized functions.
- A common misconception links protein disorder with being 'dark' or uncharacterized.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between intrinsic protein disorder and the 'dark proteome'.
- To clarify whether disordered proteins are predominantly uncharacterized.
- To analyze protein disorder across established proteomic databases.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the Swiss-Prot protein sequence database.
- Employed the Dark Proteome database for comparison.
- Applied three distinct computational predictors to assess protein disorder.
- Visualized and analyzed the disorder predictions.
Main Results:
- Calculated intrinsic disorder levels for a significant portion of Swiss-Prot proteins.
- Compared disorder predictions with protein characterization status from the Dark Proteome.
- Analysis consistently showed that protein disorder is largely independent of darkness.
Conclusions:
- Intrinsic protein disorder is not synonymous with being a 'dark protein'.
- The study refutes the misconception linking disorder and lack of characterization.
- Disordered proteins can be well-characterized, and vice versa.
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