IN-SILICO ANALYSIS AND HOMOLOGY MODELING OF ANTIOXIDANT PROTEINS OF ORYZA SATIVA SUBSP. JAPONICA (RICE)

Rice is much revered oriental food and the most important tropical cereal crop. It is the staple food of about half the human race and is often the main source of calories and the principal food of many millions of people. Health benefits of rice include providing fast and instant energy, stabilizing blood sugar levels and providing essential source of vitamin B1 to human body. In this study, a bioinformatics and molecular modeling approach was adopted to explore properties and structure of rice antioxidant proteins. The antioxidant proteins selected for this study are CYS PRX (P0C5C9, Q6ER94, P0C5D1) and PRDX (Q9FR35, Q7F8S5, Q9SDD6). Physico-chemical characterization interprets properties such as pI, EC, AI, GRAVY and instability index and provides data about these proteins and their properties. Prediction of motifs, patterns, disulphide bridges and secondary structure were performed for functional characterization. Three-dimensional structures for these proteins were not available as yet at PDB. Therefore, homology models for these antioxidant proteins were developed. The modeling of the three dimensional structure of these proteins shows that models generated by Modeller9.11 were more acceptable in comparison to that by Swiss Model. The models were validated using protein structure checking tools PROCHECK and WHAT IF. These structures will provide a good foundation for functional analysis of experimentally derived crystal structures.