Algorithms for Computing an Optimal Protein Threading with Profiles and Distance Restraints

Protein threading is one of the powerful methods for protein structure prediction. Some advances are recently made by the significant utilization of distance restraints. Xu et al. proposed a protein threading method in which distance constraints obtained from NMR experiments were taken into account [5]. Young et al. recently developed a novel experimental method to increase the predictive accuracy of the fold recognition method by using chemical cross-linking and time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry to identify LYS-LYS cross-links [6]. Though Xu et al. considered protein threading with pairwise contact energy and constraints [5], threading with profiles is also known as a powerful method for protein structure prediction. In particular, PSI-BLAST is widely used both for sequence similarity search and protein structure prediction [3]. Therefore, we have recently developed two algorithms for computing optimal threadings with profiles and constraints [1]. In this short abstract, we show performances of these two algorithms.