About this Research Topic
This Research Topic aims to collect articles that critically present and analyze tools and methodologies to unravel allosteric interactions and signal propagation to understand life at the molecular level and empower protein and drug design.
Determining the dynamic nature of proteins is challenging as it occurs at length- and time- scales that vary several orders of magnitude. Recent developments in the physical sciences allow us to probe them directly. However, the array of biophysical and computational tools employed produce large and extremely heterogeneous data sets, thus integrative approaches are required to combine them. Moreover, the advances in DNA sequencing techniques and structure determination approaches, increased the availability of sequence/structure databases derived from genomes/proteomes of thousands of organisms. The application of powerful statistical tools allows us to examine and extract complex information from the variations in the genetic code. The capabilities for DNA synthesis enable experimental testing of allosteric effects that will consent to unravel how such coordinate biochemical activities.
This collection welcomes Reviews, Mini Reviews, Perspectives in which authors provide their own view/analysis on the established approaches to probe allosteric interactions and decode the regulation of signal propagation. Moreover, it desires to embrace Original Research regarding state-of-the art tools and novel approaches on the topic. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Experimental and computational tools to monitor and investigate allosteric protein-ligand binding, allosteric protein-protein interactions, and allosteric inhibition.
• Integrative approaches to “fuse” the outcome of the different biophysical approaches.
• The role of allostery in drug design.
• The role of allostery in protein design.
• Analysis and comparison of the allosteric models.
Keywords: allostery, drug design, molecular interactions, protein-ligand binding; and protein-protein interactions
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.