Atlas of Protein Side-Chain Interactions

This atlas depicts how amino acid side-chains pack against one another within the known protein structures. This packing, which is governed by the interactions between the 20 different types of side-chains, determines the structure, function, and stability of proteins.

The atlas is based on the printed atlas of Singh & Thornton (1992). It presents all 400 possible pairwise interactions between the 20 side-chains. Note that both the dataset and the reference frames for the side-chains used here differ from those used in the printed version.

For viewing the distributions interactively you will need to download RasMol and configure your browser as decribed here.

Sidechain-sidechain interactions

Ala - Alanine

Arg - Arginine

Asn - Asparagine

Asp - Aspartate

Cys - Cysteine

Gln - Glutamine

Glu - Glutamate

Gly - Glycine

His - Histidine

Ile - Isoleucine

Leu - Leucine

Lys - Lysine

Met - Methionine

Phe - Phenylalanine

Pro - Proline

Ser - Serine

Thr - Threonine

Trp - Tryptophan

Tyr - Tyrosine

Val - Valine

Sidechain-DNA interactions

Ade - Adenine

Cyt - Cytosine

Gua - Guanine

Thy - Thymine

Roman Laskowski
European Bioinformatics Institute Nick Luscombe
European Bioinformatics Institute Serge Moes