| 摘要 |
The invention relates to the field of bioinformatics. More particularly, t he invention relates to methods of identifying sequence motifs characteristic o f G- protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) subfamilies and using these motifs, for example, to classify "orphan GPCRs." The invention provides methods of classifying "orph an GPCRs" that focus on amino acid residue similarities for ligand-binding positions. The methods use optimized sequence alignments and avoid mechanical calculation o f 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.
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