Investigation into the effects of an individual amino acid on protein function by means of a resonant recognition model

Upon identification of a new protein it is important to single out these amino acids responsible for the structural classification of the protein as well as the amino acids contributing to the protein's specific biological characterisation. A novel approach is presented to identify and quantify this cause and effect relationship between amino acid and protein. This exploits the Common Frequency Peak (CFP) that it extracts from the Resonant Recognition Model (RRM). Applicability and robustness of the method are shown on a case study where five different protein families of the influenza A virus Neuraminidase (NA) genes are studied. They include H1N1, H1N2, H2N2, H3N2 and H5N1. The analyses identified five segments, namely three between H1N1 and H5N1 and two between H1N2, H2N2 and H3N2 and suggested that they play a key role in Influenza A NA gene functionality and can potentially be considered as target areas for future antiviral drugs and vaccines such as neuraminidase inhibitors.