Direct coupling analysis

rdf:langString Direct coupling analysis

rdf:langString Direct coupling analysis or DCA is an umbrella term comprising several methods for analyzing sequence data in computational biology. The common idea of these methods is to use statistical modeling to quantify the strength of the direct relationship between two positions of a biological sequence, excluding effects from other positions. This contrasts usual measures of correlation, which can be large even if there is no direct relationship between the positions (hence the name direct coupling analysis). Such a direct relationship can for example be the evolutionary pressure for two positions to maintain mutual compatibility in the biomolecular structure of the sequence, leading to between the two positions.DCA has been used in the inference of protein residue contacts, RNA structure prediction, the inference of protein-protein interaction networks, the modeling of fitness landscapes, and the identification of functionally relevant residue communities.