A resolution-sensitive procedure for comparing protein surfaces and its application to the comparison of antigen-combining sites

Resolution is a crucial parameter to consider in making surface comparisons. A method is presented here for the rapid, objective and automatic comparison of selected parts of protein surfaces as a function of resolution using differences and correlations of Fourier coefficients. A test-case application of this procedure to the surfaces of five immunoglobulin antigen-combining sites allowed them to be partitioned into two categories.