Mutual Information (MI) methods predict structure by looking for statistical correlations between sequence positions in a set of aligned sequences. Although MI methods are often quite effective,
these methods ignore the underlying phylogenetic relationships of the sequences they analyze. Thus, they cannot distinguish between correlations due to structural interactions, and spurious
correlations resulting from phylogenetic history. We introduce a method
analogous to MI that incorporates phylogenetic information. Given the appropriate
evolutionary model, this method may be effectively applied to the prediction
of protein three-dimensional structure. It is also has the potential to
be markedly improved with the addition of more accurate phylogenetic information. |
