Prediction of DNA-binding regulatory proteins in bacteriophage T7

The high-resolution structure of several specific DNA-binding proteins have been determined, and they display a common structural motif which mediates their binding to DNA. This motif consists of two alpha-helices connected by a sharp turn, and its amino acid sequence has several distinguishing features. A computer search of the proteins coded by the genome of bacteriophage T7 has been performed in an attempt to identify those proteins that potentially contain this motif. Eight proteins were found to have regions similar to that of the motif. Of these, three are relatively small, have no known function and are good candidates for being DNA-binding regulatory proteins. The methods described use commonly available computer programs and databases, and are therefore easy to implement.