Biological function made crystal clear - annotation of hypothetical proteins via structural genomics

Many of the gene products of completely sequenced organisms are 'hypothetic al' - they cannot be related to any previously characterized proteins - and so are of completely unknown function. Structural studies provide one mean s of obtaining functional information in these cases. A 'structural genomic s' project has been initiated aimed at determining the structures of 50 hyp othetical proteins from Haemophilus influenzae to gain an understanding of their function. Each stage of the project - target selection, protein produ ction, crystallization, structure determination, and structure analysis mak es use of recent advances to streamline procedures. Early results from this and similar projects are encouraging in that some level of functional unde rstanding can be deduced from experimentally solved structures.