Adding structure to protein networks

A resource and tool for annotating protein networks with three-dimensional (3D) protein structure information is published online this week in Nature Methods. This resource will facilitate the exploration of hypotheses about protein network dynamics, analysis of the effects of disease-causing mutations and design of compounds to disrupt protein-protein interactions.

Proteins, the workhorses of the cell, carry out biological functions by interacting with each other in a highly orchestrated manner. High-throughput technologies to map protein-protein interactions have recently generated much information about protein networks.

Patrick Aloy and colleagues describe Interactome3D an internet resource and tool for adding 3D structural details to the proteins comprising these networks, yielding insights into the molecular aspects of the binding interactions. They model protein-protein interactions using available structure information, and they present models for more than 12,000 such interactions in eight model organisms. Interactome3D also allows biologists to add structure information to their own protein networks of interest.

Access Interactome3D at: (http://interactome3d.irbbarcelona.org/.）