eSSENCE@LU 10:2 - “New sequence- and structure-based computational methods to find functional domains of proteins

Protein domains are discrete, functional units within proteins, and they play a pivotal role in determining a protein's overall structure and function. Computational domain prediction is important for predicting the function of proteins encoded in sequenced genomes, and therefore organisms’ metabolic capabilities. However, tools available in publicly accessible databases do not represent all domains, making domain discovery not typically systematic, with unusual proteins found in non-model organisms going under the radar. This is important because these proteins and their domains may have biomedically or biotechnologically important functions. The project will remedy the situation by developing a new approach to searching for domains and domain boundaries systematically, across the scale of all protein sequences from life on Earth in the NCBI RefSeq database.