11/01/1997 09:00 AM
Computer Engineering
We discuss how methods based on hidden Markov models performed in the fold recognition section of the CASP2 experiment. Hidden Markov models were built for a set of about a thousand structures from the PDB database, and each CASP2 target sequence was scored against this library of hidden Markov models. In addition, a hidden Markov model was built for each of the target sequences, and all of the sequences in PDB were scored against that target model. Having high scores from both methods was found to be highly indicative of the target and a structure being homologous. Predictions were made based on several criteria: the scores with the structure models, the scores with the target models, consistency between the secondary structure in the known structure and predictions for the target (using the program PhD), human examination of predicted alignments between target and structure (using RASMOL), and solvation preferences in the alignment of the target and structure. The method worked well in comparison to other methods used at CASP2 for targets of moderate difficulty, where the closest structure in PDB could be aligned to the target with at least 15% residue identity. There was no evidence for the method\'s effectiveness for harder cases, where the residue identity was much lower than 15%.
