Domains of unknown function (DUFs) are a large set of uncharacterized protein families that are found in the Pfam database. Here, the scale and growth of functionally uncharacterized families in biological databases are surveyed and the prospects for discovering their function are examined. In particular, the important role that structural genomics can play in identifying potential function is ...

We use the Rosetta de novo structure prediction method to produce three-dimensional structure models for all Pfam-A sequence families with average length under 150 residues and no link to any protein of known structure. To estimate the reliability of the predictions, the method was calibrated on 131 proteins of known structure. For approximately 60% of the proteins one of the top five models wa...

Mobilization of Ca2+ from intracellular stores is an important mechanism for generating cytoplasmic Ca2+ signals [1]. Two families of intracellular Ca(2+)-release channels - the inositol-1,4, 5-trisphosphate (IP3) receptors and the ryanodine receptors (RyRs) - have been described in mammalian tissues [2]. Recently, nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP), a molecule derived from N...

background: hearing loss (hl) is the most frequent sensory birth defect in humans. autosomal recessive non-syn­dromic hl (arnshl) is the most common type of hereditary hl. it is extremely heterogeneous and over 70 loci (known as dfnb) have been identified. this study was launched to determine the relative contribution of more frequent loci in a cohort of arnshl families. methods: thirty-seven i...

background: accidents, such as domestic accidents, and the resulting injuries are presently a matter of concern in communities. some factors such as urbanization cause an increase in the incidence of accidents for recognized and unrecognized reasons. the aim of the present study was to investigate the incidence of domestic accidents among a group of families who had migrated to the determined u...

Background: Accidents, such as domestic accidents, and the resulting injuries are presently a matter of concern in communities. Some factors such as urbanization cause an increase in the incidence of accidents for recognized and unrecognized reasons. The aim of the present study was to investigate the incidence of domestic accidents among a group of families who had migrated to the determined u...