Structural bioinformatics

Three-dimensional structure of a protein

Structural bioinformatics is the branch of bioinformatics that is related to the analysis and prediction of the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules such as proteins, RNA, and DNA. It deals with generalizations about macromolecular 3D structures such as comparisons of overall folds and local motifs, principles of molecular folding, evolution, binding interactions, and structure/function relationships, working both from experimentally solved structures and from computational models. The term structural has the same meaning as in structural biology, and structural bioinformatics can be seen as a part of computational structural biology. The main objective of structural bioinformatics is the creation of new methods of analysing and manipulating biological macromolecular data in order to solve problems in biology and generate new knowledge.[1]

  1. ^ Gu J, Bourne PE (2011). Structural Bioinformatics (2nd ed.). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-21056-7. OCLC 778339075.