BEIJING -- Chinese researchers have built a novel protein clustering method and developed a new base editing system, supporting protein function analysis and new functional element exploration, according to a recent research article published in the journal Cell.

Functional clustering of proteins is an important method to understand their participation in physiological processes and to design new proteins.

The researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences predicted the three-dimensional structure of proteins with deamination functional sequences and carried out multiple alignment and clustering of proteins.

They developed the novel base editing system and tested it in animal and plant cells. The results showed that the discovered deaminases, based on AI-assisted structural predictions, greatly expands the utility of base editors for therapeutic and agricultural applications.

The development of a high-throughput protein clustering method based on a three-dimensional structure will give protein function research support, and promote the function mining of unknown proteins, since the protein function is determined by its three-dimensional spatial structure.

The base editing system, capable of achieving the precise editing of DNA or RNA, is considered a transformative technology for gene function research, disease treatment, and biological breeding.