Downloaded form the Protein Data Bank
Advances in X-ray crystallography combined with the enthusiam of biologists led to the creation of the Protein Data Bank which stores around 100,000 protein structures and keeps growing. Very precise positions of the atoms in proteins and much more can be freely obtained there.
The number of atoms in a single protein can be large, and therefore a method for extracting meaningful information from their positions is required. Moreover, the results coming from different labs can differ significantly. We are currently working to devise a protocol for comparing these results.
The main focus of this project is to classify the proteins using their geometric properties. We have shown that the compressibility of proteins appears to be correlated to their geometric properties. This encourages the further exploration of the possible connection between the geometry and the biological functions performed by proteins.