Function Prediction

While many good textbooks are available on Protein Structure, Molecular Simulations, Thermodynamics and Bioinformatics methods in general, there is no good introductory level book for the field of Structural Bioinformatics. This book aims to give an introduction into Structural Bioinformatics, which is where the previous topics meet to explore three dimensional protein structures through computational analysis. We provide an overview of existing computational techniques, to validate, simulate, predict and analyse protein structures. More importantly, it will aim to provide practical knowledge about how and when to use such techniques. We will consider proteins from three major vantage points: Protein structure quantification, Protein structure prediction, and Protein simulation & dynamics. There are still huge gaps in understanding the molecular function of proteins. This raises the question on how we may predict protein function, when little to no knowledge from direct experiments is available. Protein function is a broad concept which spans different scales: from quantum scale effects for catalyzing enzymatic reactions, to phenotypes that manifest at the organism level. In fact, many of these functional scales are entirely different research areas. Here, we will consider prediction of a smaller range of functions, roughly spanning the protein residue-level up to the pathway level. We will give a conceptual overview of which functional aspects of proteins we can predict, which methods are currently available, and how well they work in practice.