Given the immense progress achieved in elucidating proteinprotein complex structures and in the field of protein interaction modeling, there is great demand for a book that gives interested researchers/students a comprehensive overview of the field. This book does just that. It focuses on what can be learned about proteinprotein interactions from the analysis of proteinprotein complex structures and interfaces. What are the driving forces for proteinprotein association? How can we extract the mechanism of specific recognition from studying proteinprotein interfaces? How can this knowledge be used to predict and design proteinprotein interactions (interaction regions and complex structures)? What methods are currently employed to design proteinprotein interactions, and how can we influence proteinprotein interactions by mutagenesis and small-molecule drugs or peptide mimetics?
The book consists of about 15 review chapters, written by experts, on the characterization of proteinprotein interfaces, structure determination of protein complexes (by NMR and X-ray), theory of proteinprotein binding, dynamics of protein interfaces, bioinformatics methods to predict interaction regions, and prediction of proteinprotein complex structures (docking and homology modeling of complexes, etc.) and design of proteinprotein interactions. It serves as a bridge between studying/analyzing proteinprotein complex structures (interfaces), predicting interactions, and influencing/designing interactions.
