# Investigation of ssDNA binding proteins and protein-ssDNA interactions

> **NIH NIH R15** · UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA CHARLOTTE · 2021 · $435,894

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Molecular interactions between proteins and single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) play crucial roles in many
fundamental biological processes, such as DNA replication, DNA recombination, DNA repair, gene
regulation, and genome stability. ssDNA-binding proteins encompass various degrees of binding
specificity, ranging from highly specific to non-specific. Despite the critical roles of protein-ssDNA
interactions in essential biological processes, the investigation of protein-ssDNA interactions lags far
behind other types of protein-nucleic acids interactions, such as protein-double stranded DNA (dsDNA)
interaction. Currently there are no comprehensive, well-annotated resources for studying protein-
ssDNA interactions. This proposal aims to investigate the mechanism of protein-ssDNA interactions by
first constructing well-annotated protein-ssDNA data resources and by performing comparative analysis
at two different levels. The first is to compare structural features between protein-ssDNA complexes
with different binding specificity. The second is to investigate the similarity/differences between protein-
ssDNA and protein-dsDNA complexes. In addition, we propose to predict novel ssDNA binding proteins
from the unannotated protein sequences by combining structure-based protein threading methods and
sequence-based machine learning approaches.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10203481
- **Project number:** 1R15GM132846-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA CHARLOTTE
- **Principal Investigator:** Jun-tao Guo
- **Activity code:** R15 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $435,894
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-04-01 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10203481

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10203481, Investigation of ssDNA binding proteins and protein-ssDNA interactions (1R15GM132846-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10203481. Licensed CC0.

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