REPRESENTATION OF AMINO-ACID-SEQUENCES IN TERMS OF INTERACTION ENERGYIN PROTEIN GLOBULES

We suggest a new simple approach for comparing the primary structure o f proteins and their spatial structure, It relies on the one-to-one co rrespondence between each residue of the polypeptide chain and the ene rgy of van der Waals interactions between the regions of the native gl obule flanking this residue, The method obviates the sophisticated geo metrical criteria for estimating similarity between spatial structures , Besides, it permits one to analyze structural units of different sca le. (C) 1997 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.