Question

Which of the following statements about PANTHER and TIGRFAMs databases is incorrect regarding its features?

(a) TIGRFAMs provides a tool for identifying functionally related proteins based on sequence homology

(b) TIGRFAMs is a collection of protein families, featuring curated multiple sequence alignments, hidden Markov models (HMMs) and annotation

(c) Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are not used in PANTHER

(d) PANTHER is a large collection of protein families that have been subdivided into functionally related subfamilies, using human expertise

The question was posed to me in an online quiz.

My question comes from Protein Family Databases in chapter Sequence Alignment of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

Right option is (c) Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are not used in PANTHER

Easy explanation: In PANTHER the subfamilies model the divergence of specific functions within protein families, allowing more accurate association with function (human-curated molecular function and biological process classifications and pathway diagrams), as well as inference of amino acids important for functional specificity. Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are built for each family and subfamily for classifying additional protein sequences.