BioInformatics & Membrane Proteins

Membrane proteins of the plasma membrane consist of bundles of ?-helices that are reflected in typical hydropathy profiles of the amino acid sequences. The profiles provide a link between the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide chain and it’s folding and is much better conserved during evolution than the amino acid sequences from which they are deduced. This is the basis for a classification scheme for membrane proteins that makes use algorithms to find the optimal alignment of two hydropathy profiles and defined criteria for structural similarity.