Figure 1

Schematic illustration of importance of local surface characterization compared to structure comparison: In the upper right-hand picture, two proteins that have almost the same overall structure are shown. Despite the highly similar structures, a small local difference in their binding site due to divergent evolution may cause these proteins to have different functions. In the lower right-hand picture, two structurally different proteins are shown in bold line and dotted line, respectively. Although these proteins differ in their global structure, by convergent evolution, they may share similar local binding sites and may have similar functions. (Adapted from [6]).