Amino acid compositions of proteins and their identities

A critical overview is given on the application of amino acid composition data for the establishment of the protein's identity (amino acids composition vs. protein identity, the AAC-PI method). Several criteria are used to measure the differences between the amino acid compositions of various proteins. The AAC-PI method unambiguously identifies proteins which belong to the families with a high phylogenetic conservancy of their sequences. The identification of pure proteins can be accomplished with a relatively high level of confidence. The AAC-PI method, however, sometimes needs the support of N-terminal or internal sequencing of proteins since, alone, it cannot distinguish whether the lack of finding a candidate protein in protein data bases is because the investigated amino acid composition corresponds to an unknown protein or its processed form or because it is a sum of at least two protein components, or whether it is due to other experimental errors. The identification of a few new proteins such as "arginine-rich protein", macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and the preformed neurotrophic factor present in the calf brain cytosol is also reported.