Experimental Data

Much experimental data can aid the structure prediction process. Some of these are:

• Disulphide bonds, which provide tight restraints on the location of cysteines in space
• Spectroscopic data, which can give you and idea as to the secondary structure content of your protein
• Site directed mutagenesis studies, which can give insights as to residues involved in active or binding sites
• Knowledge of proteolytic cleavage sites, post-translational modifictions, such as phosphorylation or glycosylation can suggest residues that must be accessible
• Etc.

Remember to keep all of the available data in mind when doing predictive work. Always ask yourself whether a prediction agrees with the results of experiments. If not, then it may be necessary to modify what you've done.