High-accuracy prediction of protein structural class for low-similarity sequences based on predicted secondary structure

Information on the structural classes of proteins has been proven to be important in many fields of bioinformatics. Prediction of protein structural class for low-similarity sequences is a challenge problem. In this study, 11 features (including 8 re-used features and 3 newly-designed features) are rationally utilized to reflect the general contents and spatial arrangements of the secondary structural elements of a given protein sequence. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, jackknife cross-validation tests are performed on two widely used benchmark datasets, 1189 and 25PDB with sequence similarity lower than 40% and 25%, respectively. Comparison of our results with other methods shows that our proposed method is very promising and may provide a cost-effective alternative to predict protein structural class in particular for low-similarity datasets.

Research highlights
► The 11 features are utilized to reflect the general contents and spatial arrangements of the secondary structural elements of a given protein sequence.
► Jackknife cross-validation tests are performed on two widely used benchmark datasets, 1189 and 25PDB with sequence similarity lower than 40% and 25%, respectively.
► Comparison of our results with other methods shows that our proposed method is very promising and may provide a cost-effective alternative to predict protein structural class in particular for low-similarity datasets.