A putative novel alpha/beta hydrolase ORFan family in Bacillus

Edited by Hans Eklund

Received 30 December 2004; received in revised form 25 March 2005; accepted 11 April 2005. published online 04 May 2005.

Abstract

A large number of sequences in each newly sequenced genome correspond to lineage and species-specific proteins, also known as ORFans. Amongst these ORFans, a large number are sequences with unknown structures and functions. We have identified a family of sequences, annotated as hypothetical proteins, which are specific to Bacillus and have carried out a computational study aimed at characterizing this family. Fold-recognition methods predict that these sequences belong to the α/β hydrolase fold. We suggest possible catalytic triads for the ORFans and propose a hypothesis regarding the possible families within the α/β hydrolase superfamily to which they may belong.

Keywords: ORFans, Fold recognition, Structure prediction, Alpha/beta hydrolase, Bacillus

a Department of Chemistry, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel

b Bioinformatics Group, Department of Computer Science, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel

c Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, University at Buffalo, 901 Washington St. suite 300, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA

Corresponding author. Fax: +1 716 849 6732

PII: S0014-5793(05)00505-3

doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2005.04.030

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