Data Mining the Protein Data Bank to Identify and Characterise Chameleon Coil Sequences that Form Symmetric Homodimer β-Sheet Interfaces

A protein’s environment may affect its secondary structure. In this study, the focus is on homodimers with symmetric β-sheet interfaces resulting from the conversion of coil sequences into β-strands. All homodimers in the Protein Data Bank relying on those chameleon sequences have been identified. Initial analysis based on sequential and structural features has revealed that many of those dimers display specific properties which could contribute to their detection. Such result is important since it could provide some insight on dimerisation and possibly aggregation mechanisms.