Bioinformatics BI_E0006

title : Bioinformatics approaches for the classification of G-protein-coupled receptors

author: Anna Gaulton and Teresa K Attwood

year: 2003

place of pulbish : School of Biological Sciences and Department of Computer Science,
University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT, UK

abstract :

G-protein-coupled receptors are found abundantly in the human
genome, and are the targets of numerous prescribed drugs.
However, many receptors remain orphaned (i.e. with unknown
ligand specificity), and others remain poorly characterised, with
little structural information available. Consequently, there is often
a gulf between sequence data and structural and functional
knowledge of a receptor. Bioinformatics approaches may offer
one approach to bridging this gap. In particular, protein family
databases, which distil information from multiple sequence
alignments into characteristic signatures, could be used to
identify the families to which orphan receptors belong, and might
facilitate discovery of novel motifs associated with ligand binding
and G-protein-coupling.