Advances in comparative protein-structure modelling

Comparative modelling of protein 3D structure can now be applied with reasonable accuracy to ten times more protein sequences than the number of experimentally determined protein structures. A protein sequence that has at least 40% identity to a known structure can be modelled automatically with an accuracy approaching that of a low resolution X-ray structure or a medium resolution NMR structure. Currently, the errors in comparative models include mistakes in the packing of sidechains, in the conformation and shifts of the core segments and loops, and, most importantly, in an incorrect alignment of the modelled sequence with related known structures. Nevertheless, the number of applications in which comparative modelling has been proven to be useful has grown rapidly.