Comparative protein structure modeling using Modeller

Functional characterization of a protein sequence is one of the most frequent problems in biology. This task is usually facilitated by accurate three-dimensional (3-D) structure of the studied protein. In the absence of an experimentally determined structure, comparative or homology modeling can sometimes provide a useful 3-D model for a protein that is related to at least one known protein structure. Comparative modeling predicts the 3-D structure of a given protein sequence (target) based primarily on its alignment to one or more proteins of known structure (templates). The prediction process consists of fold assignment, target-template alignment, model building, and model evaluation. This unit describes how to calculate comparative models using the program MODELLER and discusses all four steps of comparative modeling, frequently observed errors, and some applications. Modeling lactate dehydrogenase from Trichomonas vaginalis (TvLDH) is described as an example. The download and installation of the MODELLER software is also described.

Eswar, Narayanan Webb, Ben Marti-Renom, Marc A Madhusudhan, M S Eramian, David Shen, Min-Yi Pieper, Ursula Sali, Andrej P01 A135707/PHS HHS/United States P01 GM71790/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States R01 GM54762/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States U54 GM62529/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov’t United States Current protocols in bioinformatics / editoral board, Andreas D. Baxevanis ... [et al.] Curr Protoc Bioinformatics. 2006 Oct;Chapter 5:Unit 5.6.