In silico identification of putative metal binding motifs

Metal ion binding domains are found in proteins that mediate transport, buffering or detoxification of metal ions. In this study, we have performed an in silico analysis of metal binding proteins and have identified putative metal binding motifs for the ions of cadmium, cobalt, zinc, arsenic, mercury, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum and nickel. A pattern search against the UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot and UniProtKB/TrEMBL databases yielded true positives in each case showing the high-specificity of the motifs. Motifs were also validated against PDB structures and site directed mutagenesis studies.