Title:    Computational Biology and Molecular Architecture
Speaker:  William R. Atchley, Department of Genetics, NCSU, Raleigh, NC 

Abstract
Understanding the origin and evolution of gene expression patterns requires 
knowledge of the Òmolecular architectureÓ of DNA-transcription factor 
interactions, i.e., the relative composition of amino acids, their 
physiochemical properties, structure of the DNA-protein interaction, 
binding affinities among protein variants and a myriad of other features.  
Extensive laboratory analyses are conventionally used to ascertain molecular 
architecture. To short-circuit some of this, we are using multivariate 
statistical analyses on sequence data in transcriptional regulators to 
explore the molecular architecture of the DNA binding and dimerization 
regions.  TodayÕs lecture deals with the application of multivariate 
discriminant analysis procedures to define subsets of amino acids whose 
simultaneous covariation accurately distinguishes the DNA binding groups 
in basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins.  Further, important underlying 
physiochemical attributes important to these findings will be described.


Part of the lecture with come from the following papers:

Atchley, W. R. and J. Zhao. 2006. Molecular Architecture of the DNA Binding 
Region and its Relationship to Classification of Basic Helix-Loop-Helix 
Proteins. Molecular Biology and Evolution.  In Press. 
[Pre-Print at http://www.atchleylab.org/]

Atchley, W. R., J. Zhao, A. Fernandes and T. Drueke. 2005. Solving the 
sequence ÒmetricÓ problem: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102:6395-6400. 
[PDF reprint at http://www.atchleylab.org/]