Cumulative totals of the number of new transmembrane protein structures since 2007 according to PDBTM (blue). Since this data is highly redundant (e.g. the same protein was often crystallized multiple times), the number of different proteins related to these structures are shown as well (red). Finally, the number of different human proteins revealed by these PDB entries are shown (green). Exponential curves were fitted to each plot in a similar way as described by Dickerson in PDB Newsletter (1978)[1], using the year in the exponent (starting from 2007)(black dashed lines) (the equations are: e0.1712*(Year-2006)+6.0812, e0.1425*(Year-2006)+5.2258 and e0.2504*(Year-2006)+2.2690 for 3D, Unique 3D and human unique 3D transmembrane structures, respectively. Regarding only polytopic transmembrane proteins, the eauations are: e0.1965*(Year-2006)+5.5821, e0.1684*(Year-2006)+4.6498 and e0.3448*(Year-2006)+0.8605 for 3D, Unique 3D
and human unique 3D transmembrane structures, respectively. According to this figure, even if the growth of solved membrane protein structures is exponential [2], the rise of the curve is rather plain considering only different proteins.
References
- Dickerson, 1978 [link]
- White SH (2004) The progress of membrane protein structure determination. Protein Sci. 13 1948-9. [PubMed]
For all structures in PDBTM
For all polytopic membrane proteins' structures in PDBTM