Question

Which of the following is untrue regarding Coils?

(a) It is a web-based program that detects coiled coil regions in proteins

(b) It scans a window of fourteen, twenty-one, or twenty-eight residues

(c) It scans a window of fourteen or twenty-one residues only

(d) It compares the sequence to a probability matrix compiled from known parallel two-stranded coiled coils

This question was addressed to me in a national level competition.

My question comes from Coiled Coil Prediction topic in section Secondary Structure Prediction of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

Correct choice is (c) It scans a window of fourteen or twenty-one residues only

Easy explanation: By comparing the similarity scores, the program calculates the probability of the sequence to adopt a coiled coil conformation. The program is accurate for solvent-exposed, left-handed coiled coils, but less sensitive for other types of coiled coil structures, such as buried or right-handed coiled coils.