Amino acid sequence motifs characteristic of GPCR subfamilies, and methods for GPCR characterization

摘要

The invention relates to the field of bioinformatics. More particularly, the invention relates to methods of identifying sequence motifs characteristic of G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) subfamilies and using these motifs, for example, to classify "orphan GPCRs." The invention provides methods of classifying "orphan GPCRs" that focus on amino acid residue similarities for ligand-binding positions. The methods use optimized sequence alignments and avoid mechanical calculation of scores and cutoffs. In particular, a sequence motif characteristic of a GPCR subfamily that binds a certain ligand type is determined, and "orphan GPCRs" having the sequence motif are assigned to the subfamily.