PSI Centers
The Protein Structure Initiative is organized in a collection of Large-Scale, Specialized, Modeling and Resource Centers. Brief summaries of the centers and links to the center websites are available from the items in the left menu and the text below.
Centers
- Joint Center for Structural Genomics
- Midwest Center for Structural Genomics
- Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium
- New York SGX Research Center for Structural Genomics
Large Scale Centers
Four large-scale centers, all established during the PSI pilot phase, have constructed structural genomics pipelines for the production and structural determination of proteins in a high-throughput operation. Over the 5-year period of PSI-2, these centers will coordinate their efforts to generate more than 4,000 structures of protein families, thus meeting the programs goals of increasing structural coverage of sequenced genes and providing benefits for the entire biomedical community. The centers will also develop new technologies to improve the pipeline and to increase success rates and lower costs. Each center also has an individual structural genomics research project, as described in the menu items for each center.
Specialist Centers
Six specialized centers are developing innovative methods, approaches, and technologies for producing and determining the structures of proteins that traditionally have been difficult to study. These include small protein complexes, membrane proteins, and proteins from higher organisms including humans. During the next 5 years, these efforts are expected to overcome bottlenecks in the structural genomics pipeline and approach high-throughput operation. The specialized centers are also expected to determine a significant number of these challenging protein structures.
Modeling Centers
Two homology modeling centers are developing innovative computational methods for reliably predicting the three-dimensional structures of proteins. This effort brings the PSI closer to its long-range goal of making it easy to determine the shapes of proteins from genetic sequence information. The centers will use PSI structures solved experimentally to help develop computational methods and verify model accuracy.
Resource Centers
Two centers have been established to centralize resources developed by the PSI centers and increase the scientific community's access to them.
The PSI Materials Repository hosted at the Harvard Medical School - Harvard Institute of Proteomics, operates the PSI-Materials Repository. This facility stores and ships PSI-generated clones which can be used to make specific proteins for studies on their structure and function.
This web portal, the PSI Structural Genomics Knowledgebase, is hosted by Rutgers University and serves as a central resource for structural information generated by the PSI centers. For every protein, scientists will be able to find the best available information about its structure, biological function, and experimental determination.
