Vector Alignment Search Tool

VAST. Sets of coordinate data are compared using a vector-based method known as VAST, for Vector Alignment Search Tool (Madej et al., 1995 Gibrat et al., 1996). There are three major steps that take place in the course of a VAST comparison ... 

The second approach compares structures with structures, in the same light as the vector aligmnent search tool (VAST) discussed in Chapter 5 does. The DALI algorithm looks for similar contact patterns between two proteins, performs an optimization, and returns the best set of structure alignment solutions for those proteins (Holm and Sander, 1993). The method is flexible in that gaps may be of any length. 

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