intro.qmd

---
title: "Introduction"
date: "August 21, 2023"
date-modified: "`r Sys.Date()`"
format: 
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bibliography: references.bib
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```{r echo=FALSE, output=FALSE}

library(webexercises)
```

# Goals {data-link="Preface"}

[Structural
Bioinformatics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_bioinformatics "Wikipedia")
(SB) is a broad discipline that comprises data resources, algorithms, and tools
for investigating, analyzing, predicting, and interpreting biomacromolecular
structures @paiva2022. More specifically, we are interested in protein
structural bioinformatics, spanning visualization and analysis of the structure
of biomacromolecules as well as the prediction of protein structures and
complexes. The great promise of SB is predicated on the belief that a
high-resolution structural information about biological systems will allow us to
precisely reason about the function of these systems and the effects of
modifications and perturbations.

The goals of SB require at least four different research lines (see Chapter 1 in
@structur):

1.  *Visualization* of complex structures with several sources of information:
    sequence, structural data, electrostatic fields, location of functional
    sites, and areas of variability.

2.  *Classification* of the structures, making if necessary to cluster similar
    structures together in a hierarchical classification allow us to identify
    common origins and diversification paths. Similar to other fields of biology
    classification is tedious but required to understand the structural space.

3.  *Prediction* of structures remains an area of keen interest and a field of
    research itself. As we will see below, the number of different sequences is
    much higher than the availability of structures, which make prediction an
    essential and useful tool.

4.  *Simulation.* Experimentally obtained structures are primarily static
    structural models (see warning below). However, the properties of these
    molecules are often the results of their dynamic motions. The definition of
    energy functions that govern the folding of proteins and their subsequent
    stable dynamics can be analyzed by molecular dynamics simulations, although
    computation capacities may be limiting to reach a biologically relevant
    timescales.

Powered by large amount of data and great technical advances, the field has
experienced a great revolution in the last decade. The increase of experimental
capacities to analyze the structure of proteins and other biological molecules
and structures (see @callaway2020) and the development of Artificial
Intelligence (AI)-assisted structure prediction boosted the capacity of
life-science researchers to address a wide variety of questions regarding
proteins diversity, evolution and function. This revolution underwent a great
acceleration in the last 2-3 years and the implications in biology,
biotechnology, and biomedicine are still unforeseen.

# Before going forward: Protein Structure 101 {#sec-str}

Although you can make some protein modeling without being an expert in
structural biology, a basic understanding of protein structure is strongly
advisable. In this course there are some students without a background in
biology. Moreover, over the years, I noticed that graduate students in biology,
biomedicine, and related fields have a very different background on protein
structure. If you want to review and update your background on protein
structure, I recommend you reading Chapter 2 of @structur, the great recent
review by @stollar2020 and the
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_structure) and
[Proteopedia](https://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Introduction_to_protein_structure)
articles on protein structures, which constituted my main source for this brief
section (follow picture links).

[![Protein structure levels, using human PCNA (PDB 1AXC) as an
example.](pics/Protein_structure.png "Protein Structure"){#fig-str
.figure}](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_structure)

Proteins are key components of life, playing key roles in almost any possible
vital function, either as structural, or scaffolding elements or as active
enzymes that catalyze metabolic reactions. Proteins are built as polymers of
amino acids and the sequence of amino acids of a particular protein can be also
called the **primary structure** of the protein. Amino acid chains can
spontaneously fold up into three-dimensional structures, mostly stabilized by
hydrogen bonds between amino acids. The amino acid sequence determines different
layers of 3D structure. Each of the 20 natural amino acids has different
physicochemical properties that affect its preferred conformation. Thus, the
first level of folding is called **secondary structure**, forming common
patterns as we will see in a moment.

[![Amino acids classification by
type](pics/aa.png "Amino acids clasification by type"){#fig-aa
.figure}](https://www.reddit.com/r/chemistry/comments/acyald/venn_diagram_showing_the_properties_of_the_20/)

These stretches of secondary structure patterns can fold in 3D due to
interactions between the side chains of amino acids. This is called protein
**Tertiary structure**. Finally, two or more individual peptide chains can form
multisubunit proteins that have the so-called **Quaternary structure**.

It should be noted that the peptide bond itself cannot rotate as it has a double
bond-like character. Therefore, rotation can only occur about the bond between
the Cα and the C = O group, (the phi (φ) angle) and the Cα and the NH group,
(the psi (ψ) angle). In fact, the polypeptide backbone chain is composed of a
repeating series of two rotatable bonds followed by one non-rotatable (peptide)
bond. However, not all 360º of the psi and phi angles are possible as
neighboring sidechains can clash due to steric hindrance. For certain angles and
amino acid combinations, the atoms cannot be in the same physical place and this
partly explains why some amino acids have a higher propensity (likelihood) to
form different types of secondary structures.

[![Scheme of a generic polypeptide chain. Residue side chains are denoted as R.
Coloured rectangles indicate sets of six atoms that are coplanar due to the
double-bond character of the peptide bond. Arrows indicate the bonds that are
free to rotate with the angle of rotation about the N--Cα known as phi and about
the Cα--C known as psi. Note that only peptide backbone bonds are labeled and in
most cases the R group bond is free to
rotate.](pics/peptide_bond.png "Peptide bond"){#fig-bond
.figure}](https://portlandpress.com/essaysbiochem/article/64/4/649/226515/Uncovering-protein-structure)

::: {#ss}
Within these restraints, the two principal local conformations that avoid steric
hindrance and maximize backbone--backbone hydrogen bonding are the **α-helix**
and the **β-sheet** secondary structures. The α-helix was proposed initially as
left-handed by [Linus Pauling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling) in
1951, but the crystal structure of myoglobin in 1958 showed that, although both
can be found, the right-handed form is the common one. In the common
right-handed helices, the backbone NH group hydrogen bonds to the backbone C = O
group of the amino acid located four residues earlier along the protein
sequence. This results in a polypeptide chain that twists in a regular coil
shape with the R-groups pointing outwards away from the peptide backbone. It
takes approximately 3.6 residues to complete a full turn of a helix.
:::

::: {layout-ncol="1"}
[![Alpha helix.](pics/alpha.png "Alpha helix"){#fig-alpha
.figure}](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_helix)

[![Detailed description of a beta sheet made up of three beta
strands.](pics/beta.png "Beta sheet"){#fig-beta
.figure}](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_sheet)
:::

Different amino-acid sequences have different propensities for forming α-helical
structures. [Methionine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methionine "Methionine"),
[alanine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alanine "Alanine"),
[leucine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucine "Leucine"),
[glutamate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutamate "Glutamate"), and
[lysine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysine "Lysine") have especially high
helix-forming propensities, whereas
[proline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proline "Proline") and
[glycine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycine "Glycine") have poor
helix-forming propensities.
[Proline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proline "Proline") either breaks or
kinks a helix, both because it cannot donate an amide [hydrogen
bond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_bond "Hydrogen bond") (having no
amide hydrogen), and also because its bulky sidechain interferes sterically with
the backbone of the preceding turn.
[Glycine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycine "Glycine") is also an alpha
helix breaker. Glycine has only a hydrogen as its R-group and therefore has no
constrains for its Φ and Ψ angles. This makes it entropically expensive to adopt
the relatively constrained α-helical structure. In other words, glycine is too
flexible to hold the structure needed for an alpha helix.

**β-Sheets** are composed of two or more extended polypeptide chains called
β-strands that run alongside each other. They can be arranged in either a
parallel or antiparallel manner. The residues arrange themselves in a regular
zigzag manner with the adjacent peptide bonds pointing in opposite directions.
In this arrangement, the NH group and the C = O group of each amino acid are
hydrogen-bonded to the C = O group and NH group respectively on the adjacent
strands. Chains can run in opposite directions, forming an antiparallel β-sheet,
or in the same direction, forming a parallel β-sheet. Sidechains from each of
the residues point away from the sheets and alternate in opposite directions
between residues. It is common to see a pattern of alternating hydrophilic and
hydrophobic residues in the primary structure, giving the β-sheets hydrophilic
and hydrophobic faces.

Large aromatic residues
([tyrosine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrosine "Tyrosine"),
[phenylalanine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylalanine "Phenylalanine"),
[tryptophan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan "Tryptophan")) and
β-branched amino acids
([threonine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threonine "Threonine"),
[valine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valine "Valine"),
[isoleucine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoleucine "Isoleucine")) are favored
to be found in β-strands. As in the case of α-helixes, β-strands are often ended
by [glycines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycine "Glycine"), which are
especially common in β-turns (the most common connector between strands), as
[amino acids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid "Amino acid") with
positive φ angles.

The side chain of amino acids also have their torsion angles, referred as χ1,
χ2, χ3...

[![Dihedral angles in glutamate: Dihedral angles are the main degrees of freedom
for the backbone (ϕ and ψ angles) and the side chain (χ angles) of an amino
acid. The number of χ angles varies between zero and four for the 20 standard
amino acids. The figure shows a ball-and-stick representation of glutamate,
which has three χ angles (from
@harder2010).](images/paste-6EE800AE.png){#fig-chi .figure
width="450"}](https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2105-11-306)

## Ramachandran Plot {#sec-rama}

As you probably already figure out, many combinations of φ and ψ angles are
forbidden because of the principle of steric exclusion: two atoms cannot be in
the same place at the same time. This was initially shown by [Gopalasamudram
Ramachandran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._N._Ramachandran), who also
devised a plot to visualize the allowed angle values, so-called Ramachandran
plot. This plot can represent the angles of a particular amino acid, of all the
amino acids in a protein or many proteins. Analysis of φ and ψ angles in known
proteins clearly show that roughly three-quarters of all possible φ, ψ
combinations are excluded.

[![General Ramachandran plot. The density of points reflects how likely is each
angle combination, defining the core (red line) and tolerance (orange)
regions.](pics/Ramachandran_plot_general_100K.jpg "General Ramachandran plot"){#fig-rama0
.figure}](https://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Ramachandran_Plot)

The core regions in the Rama plot also correspond with common secondary
structures, as usually represented in textbooks.

![Definition of secondary structure alternatives by their combination of phi,
psi angles.](pics/rama2.png "Textbook Rama plot"){#fig-ram .figure}

Functionally and structurally relevant residues are more likely than others to
have torsion angles that can be distributed into the [allowed but
disfavored]{.underline} regions of a Ramachandran plot. The specific geometry of
these functionally relevant residues, while somewhat energetically unfavorable,
may be important for the protein's function, catalytic or otherwise. Such
conformations need to be stabilized by the protein using H-bonds, steric
packing, or other means, and should very seldom occur for highly solvent-exposed
residues.

[![Ramachandran plots for glycine (lef) and proline (right) Inner contour
encloses 98% and 99.9% of Top structures data, indicating the favored and
allowed regions, respectively
.](pics/Ramachandran_Gly_Pro_data_and_contours_T8000_small.jpg){#fig-rama2
.figure}](https://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Ramachandran_Plot)

## Protein folds, domains and motifs

The final three dimensional tertiary structure of a protein is commonly referred
as its **fold**. Within the overall protein fold, we can recognize distinct
**domains** and **motifs.** Domains are compact sections of the protein that
represent structurally and (usually) functionally independent regions. That
means that a domain maintain its main features, even if separated from the
overall protein. On the other hand, motifs are small substructures that are not
necessarily independent and consist of only a few secondary structure stretches.
Indeed, motifs can be also referred as *super-secondary* structure.

The diversity of protein folds, domains and motifs, and combination of those,
can be used for classification of protein structures hierarchically, as in many
other fields of biology. The first classification was proposed in the 70's and
consisted of four groups of folds, as shown in the figure below. *All α*
proteins are based almost entirely on an α-helical structure, and *all
β*-structure are based on β-sheets. *α/β* structure is based on as mixture of
α-helices and β-sheet, often organized as parallel β-strands connected by
α-helices. On the other hand, *α+β* structures consist of discrete α-helix and
β-sheet motifs that are not interwoven (as they are in α/β proteins). Finally,
*small proteins* span polypeptides with no or little secondary structures.

![The four structural protein classes in the classification by Chlothia &
Levitt. Modified from @structur using 1I2T, 1K76, 1H75 and 1EM7
structures.](pics/clasif.png){#fig-chlothia .figure}

## [**Quick exercise**]{style="color:green"}

Explore the structure below and try to understand its structure. Then answer the
question.

{{< mol-rcsb 3MWD viewportShowAnimation=false >}}

```{r wd, echo = FALSE, results = 'asis'}
opts_p <- c("All-α", "All β",
   answer = "α/β",
   "α+β",
   "Small")

cat("**Which structural class is the protein above?**",longmcq(opts_p))
```

As you can see, as the protein is larger, classification gets more difficult.
Moreover, as fold space has become more and more complex, these types of
classifications have been adjusted and extended such that a complete hierarchy
is created. The most commonly referred approaches to this sort of classification
are those used by SCOP and CATH databases, as we will see in the [Structural
Databases](ddbb.html#strDDBB) section.

## [**Hands on: Playing with secondary structures**]{style="color:green"}

![](pics/handson.png "Hands-on")

::: {.callout-important}
# Groups
Remember to work on groups as assigned. Groups should be the same for all the course exercises.
:::

::: { .callout-note collapse="true"}
# Evernote
This is a [Evernote](https://evernote.com/intl/es) note that you can check on your web browser and also copy into your Evenote account/App if you wish.
Link [here](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s62/nl/6844171/146913e2-a71b-a089-bcc5-c99ec0e5060b?title=StrBio%202023/2024%20-%201.%20(A)%20Secondary%20structures)
:::



There are a few online alternatives to model any peptide sequence and quickly
see the effect of amino acid composition in the secondary structure. One of the
best-known is Foldit ([www.fold.it](http://www.fold.it), @miller2020), a gaming
platform for biochemistry and structural biology teaching. It is a highly
recommended alternative for most courses related to protein structure.

In this course we are going to try a more recent proposal, recently twitted by
Sergey Ovchinnikov:

{{< tweet sokrypton 1535857255647690753 >}}

This is based on ColabFold (see <https://github.com/sokrypton/ColabFold> and
@mirdita2022), an Alphafold2 (see @jumper2021) free notebook in [Google Colab
notebook](https://colab.research.google.com/?hl=en). All you need is a Google
account and the following *cheatsheet*.

[![Basic protein amino acids stats for protein design with ColabFold
Single](pics/cheatsheet.png "Protein hallucination"){#fig-single
.figure}](https://twitter.com/sokrypton/status/1535857255647690753)

Now go to ColabFold Single:
<https://colab.research.google.com/github/sokrypton/af_backprop/blob/beta/examples/AlphaFold_single.ipynb>

Construct some small proteins and compare the output. Note that the first model
will take 3-5 min, but the others will be faster. I provide here some
interesting examples (IUPAC one-letter amino acid code):

1.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

2.  KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

3.  PVAVEARENGRLAVRVEGAIAVLIRENGRLVVRVEGG

4.  PELEKHREELGEFLKKETGIAVEIRENGRLEVRVEGYTDVKIEGGTERLKRFLEEL

5.  ACTWEGNKLTCA

**1. Answer the following questions:**\
**- Why is a poly-K more stable (dark blue) than a poly-A?**\
\
**- Could you predict the structure of a poly-V or a poly-G?**\
\
**- What would happen if you introduce a K5W in the structure number 2? and in
the 4?**\
\
\
**2. Now, try to create peptides with a custom motif, such as:**\
\
**- Two helices.**\
**- A four-strands beta-sheet.**\
**- Alpha-beta-beta-alpha.**\