Ab initio and template-based prediction of multi-class distance maps by two-dimensional recursive neural networks

摘要

BackgroundPrediction of protein structures from their sequences is still one of the open grand challenges of computational biology. Some approaches to protein structure prediction, especially ab initio ones, rely to some extent on the prediction of residue contact maps. Residue contact map predictions have been assessed at the CASP competition for several years now. Although it has been shown that exact contact maps generally yield correct three-dimensional structures, this is true only at a relatively low resolution (3–4 Å from the native structure). Another known weakness of contact maps is that they are generally predicted ab initio, that is not exploiting information about potential homologues of known structure.