ANALYSIS OF POTENTIAL FUNCTIONAL REGIONS USING LOCAL DEGENERACY - MUTATIONAL HOTSPOTS IN HUMAN FACTOR-IX ARE LOCALIZED IN HIGH-DEGENERACY REGIONS

To study the relationship between the potential functional regions wit h the primary amino acid sequence, we introduced a new factor termed l ocal degeneracy to analyze the degree of the degeneracy in a given seg ment of the protein. Using the defined local degeneracy, we have analy zed the human coagulation Factor IX (Christmas factor) which is an ess ential component of the clotting cascade. The mutational hotspots in F actor IX are primarily distributed in the high-degeneracy regions, sug gesting a direct correlation of the functional regions with high degre e of the degeneracy. This method may be useful to predict and to evalu ate potential functional domains of a protein. (C) 1994 Academic Press , Inc.