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Updated: Oct 18, 2026

Investigating Protein Sequence-structure-dynamics Relationships with Bio3D-web
Published on: July 16, 2017
Frenet frame analysis of protein geometry: Hints for secondary structure assignments
M Prados1, M D Hernández1, F de Soto1
1Pablo de Olavide University, Departamento de Sistemas Físicos, Químicos y Naturales, Seville, Spain.
Abstract:
We analyze the protein secondary structure using the Frenet frame to describe the curvature and torsion of the discrete curve formed by the protein α-carbons. We show how a simple criterion based on the evaluation of Frenet frame rotation along the discrete curve supports identification of alpha-helices, beta-strands, and selected supersecondary structures in proteins. Moreover, the description of proteins as fixed points of an effective action inspired by a U(1) gauge model is supported by the analysis of a large dataset of proteins in the Protein Data Bank.
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