Classification of the Viral World Based on Atomic Level Structures

Abstract

The science of classification is the process of revealing both similarities and differences between sets of study subjects. Atomic level three-dimensional structures provide a wealth of information about proteins, thus, by classifying structures, functional and evolutionary relationships can be inferred. However, classification always relies on some predefined metrics to measure similarity or difference (i.e., similarity score), which in turn affects both computations and interpretation of the results. Here, we describe both historical and current methods for classifying proteins (and viruses that encode them) based on their atomic structures, discuss the used similarity scores and present case studies and structural phylogenies derived from those classifications.