Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30958823›Full record

ArticlePLoS computational biology2019

The intrinsic dimension of protein sequence evolution.

Elena Facco, Andrea Pagnani, Elena Tea Russo, Alessandro Laio

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS computational biology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Descent from a common ancestor restricts exploration of protein sequence space.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Manifold Learning for fMRI time-varying FC.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Elena FaccoSISSA, Trieste, Italy.
Andrea PagnaniDISAT, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy.ORCID 0000-0002-6509-0807
Elena Tea RussoSISSA, Trieste, Italy.
Alessandro LaioSISSA, Trieste, Italy.ORCID 0000-0001-9164-7907

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

It is well known that, in order to preserve its structure and function, a protein cannot change its sequence at random, but only by mutations occurring preferentially at specific locations. We here investigate quantitatively the amount of variability that is allowed in protein sequence evolution, by computing the intrinsic dimension (ID) of the sequences belonging to a selection of protein families. The ID is a measure of the number of independent directions that evolution can take starting from a given sequence. We find that the ID is practically constant for sequences belonging to the same family, and moreover it is very similar in different families, with values ranging between 6 and 12. These values are significantly smaller than the raw number of amino acids, confirming the importance of correlations between mutations in different sites. However, we demonstrate that correlations are not sufficient to explain the small value of the ID we observe in protein families. Indeed, we show that the ID of a set of protein sequences generated by maximum entropy models, an approach in which correlations are accounted for, is typically significantly larger than the value observed in natural protein families. We further prove that a critical factor to reproduce the natural ID is to take into consideration the phylogeny of sequences.

Indexed as

Evolution, MolecularAmino Acid SequenceComputational BiologyDatabases, ProteinModels, MolecularMutationPhylogenyProtein ConformationProtein FoldingProteinsSequence Homology, Amino AcidStructural Homology, ProteinProteins

Identifiers

PMID30958823
PMCPMC6472826

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.