Application of THEMATICS to Non-Catalytic Ligand-Binding Proteins

THEMATICS is a simple computational method for predicting functional sites in proteins. The method computes the theoretical titration curves of the ionizable residues of a protein using its 3D structure, determines the residues with perturbed, non-Henderson-Hasselbalch titration behavior, and identifies clusters of these perturbed residues in physical proximity. We have shown previously that this method is highly successful in predicting catalytic sites in enzymes. In the present study, we apply the method to non-catalytic ligand-binding proteins. It is shown that THEMATICS can predict non-catalytic binding sites. The success rate is better than 80 % for a set of 30 non-catalytic, ligand-binding proteins. The application of the method to Glutamine-binding protein from E. coli is discussed in detail.