Author Description

Sequence metric problem is caused by the alphabetic coding of amino acids and is a major hindrance to protein sequence analysis. This book studied protein sequence metric problem solution and applied it to explore the structural, functional and evolutionary aspects of basic helix-loop- helix(bHLH)protein family. The book revisited sequence metric problem solution by [Atchley et al 2005]. Some of the unsolved issues were studied. Next, the book focused on statistical studies of the bHLH protein family using the metric solution. Next, protein sequence variability in the level of clades was studied using multivariate statistics. Important discriminant sites for the clades were selected and hierarchical classification strategies for the clades were proposed. Lastly, Arabidopsis bHLH proteins were studied by a series of multivariate analyses. Results showed that there were significant sequence differences between plant and animal bHLH proteins. Contributing discriminant sites were selected and discussed. Binding property of each of the Arabidopsis bHLH proteins was assigned by using the classification rules derived from animal bHLH proteins.