Geometry-based flexible and symmetric protein docking

We present a set of geometric docking algorithms for rigid, flexible, and cyclic symmetry docking. The algorithms are highly efficient and have demonstrated very good performance in CAPRI Rounds 3–5. The flexible docking algorithm, FlexDock, is unique in its ability to handle any number of hinges in the flexible molecule, without degradation in run‐time performance, as compared to rigid docking. The algorithm for reconstruction of cyclically symmetric complexes successfully assembles multimolecular complexes satisfying Cn symmetry for any n in a matter of minutes on a desktop PC. Most of the algorithms presented here are available at the Tel Aviv University Structural Bioinformatics Web server (http://bioinfo3d.cs.tau.ac.il/). Proteins 2005;60:224–231. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.