Parabolic section and distance excess of space curves applied to protein structure classification

Proteins are long chain molecules that fold up into beautiful and complicated three-dimensional structures before fulfilling their biological functions in the living organisms. With the aim of providing an efficient tool for describing the proteins' native folds, we present a global geometric measure of a space curve.

This geometric measure allows us to define descriptors of protein structures that quantify how parallel the secondary structure elements of a protein are. These descriptors are C-2 in deformations of the protein structure, are evaluated very fast and reliably, and are demonstrated to capture essential parts of the protein native fold universe.