Whole-proteome structure/function prediction in uropathogenic E. coli reveals previously missed host-microbe and microbe-phage interaction pathways.

A complete sequence-to-structure-to-function pipeline predicts structures and functions for all proteins in Escherichia coli UTI89, enabling genome-wide functional enrichment despite missing homologs.

• Why it matters: Experimental structure/function characterization lags behind the surge in protein sequences, and homology-based methods fail for proteins without identifiable relatives, limiting interpretation of high-throughput data.
• What they did: The authors integrated protein structure and function prediction methods into a full pipeline, applied it to every protein in Escherichia coli UTI89, then validated key predictions via case studies of UTI89_C0931 and ybtS.
• The result: Enrichment analysis of predicted functions suggests roles for poorly annotated proteins and highlights host–microbe and microbe–phage interaction pathways, and the UTI89 structure/function database is released to support studies of pathogenicity and resistance.

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