Description of the local protein structure. II. Novel approaches.
Résumé
The repetitive local structures, i.e. the alpha-helices and the beta-sheets have been widely used and analysed. However, they only describe 50% of the residues and sometimes roughly. So, other approaches have led to a new view of 3D protein structures. They are now thought to be composed of a combination of small local structures or fragments, also called prototypes. The complete set of prototypes defines “a structural alphabet.” Different teams have described these local protein structures according to different criteria. The structural alphabets have been used to approximate locally the protein structures, analyze them and also for prediction purposes. In this review, we present them from a historic point of view and focus on the most recent advances.