Everything about Structural alignment
Aligning molecular sequences using sequence and structural information
Structural alignment attempts to establish homology between two or more polymer structures based on their shape and three-dimensional conformation. This process is usually applied to protein tertiary structures but can also be used for large RNA molecules. In contrast to simple structural superposition, where at least some equivalent residues of the two structures are known, structural alignment requires no a priori knowledge of equivalent positions. Structural alignment is a valuable tool for the comparison of proteins with low sequence similarity, where evolutionary relationships between proteins cannot be easily detected by standard sequence alignment techniques. Structural alignment can therefore be used to infer evolutionary relationships between proteins that share very little common sequence. Those relationships can then be characterized through structural phylogenetics. However, caution should be taken when interpreting any results as evidence for shared evolutionary ancestry due to the potential confounding effects of convergent evolution, by which unrelated or distantly-related amino acid sequences converge on a common tertiary structure. Wikipedia →
🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: Structural alignmentA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: Broadband convolutional processing using band-alignment-tunable heterostructuresInfluential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: Introduction to Protein ArchitectureThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: MUSTANG: A multiple structural alignment algorithmCited 660 times
- Go sideways: SuperPoseA closely related topic
- Go sideways: Template modeling scoreA closely related topic
📖 Definitions
No dictionary entry for this exact phrase.
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
MUSTANG: A multiple structural alignment algorithm
Structural Alignment during Similarity Comparisons
MAFFT-DASH: integrated protein sequence and structural alignment
Advances and pitfalls of protein structural alignment
Structural Alignment in Comparison: No Difference Without Similarity
Computational methods for the structural alignment of molecules
Multiple structural alignment and clustering of RNA sequences
Structural alignment facilitates the noticing of differences
🆕 Influential since 2022
Broadband convolutional processing using band-alignment-tunable heterostructures
Protein remote homology detection and structural alignment using deep learning
Self-Supervised Temporal Graph Learning With Temporal and Structural Intensity Alignment
Cross-Domain Recommendation via Progressive Structural Alignment
Multiple Group Alignment for Exploratory and Structural Equation Models
📚 Books worth reading
Introduction to Protein ArchitectureArthur M. Lesk · 2001
Nakshatra StutiVamshi Krishna Ghanapathi · 2021
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
🔗 Related topics
- SuperPose SuperPose is a freely available web server designed to perform both pairwise and multiple protein structure superpositions. The “Structural superposition”…
- Template modeling score In bioinformatics, the template modeling score or TM-score is a measure of similarity between two protein structures. The TM-score is intended as a more…
- Sequence alignment In bioinformatics, a sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity that may be a consequence…
- Structural alignment software This list of structural comparison and alignment software is a compilation of software tools and web portals used in pairwise or multiple structural comparison…
- T-Coffee T-Coffee (Tree-based Consistency Objective Function for Alignment Evaluation) is a multiple sequence alignment software using a progressive approach. It…
- Global distance test The global distance test (GDT), also written as GDT_TS to represent "total score", is a measure of similarity between two protein structures with known…
- Root mean square deviation of atomic positions In bioinformatics, the root mean square deviation of atomic positions, or simply root mean square deviation (RMSD), is the measure of the average distance…
- Gap penalty In DNA analysis, gap penalty is a method of scoring alignments of two or more DNA sequences. When aligning sequences, introducing gaps in the sequences…