MULTI-TEMPLATE HOMOLOGY MODELING OF HUMAN MCT8 PROTEIN .

Monocarboxylate transporter-8 (MCT8) is a specific thyroid hormone transporter, necessary for the uptake of thyroid hormone into target tissues. Mutations in the MCT8 gene lead to a syndrome named Allan?Herndon?Dudley syndrome (AHDS), also known as MCT8 deficiency. At present, no treatment is available for Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome (AHDS). Knowledge of protein three-dimensional structure (3D) is essential for understanding the mechanism of protein function, and it is crucial for the development of target-specific drugs. Unfortunately, protein structure determination using experimental methods is time consuming and not successful with all proteins, especially membrane proteins. The three-dimensional structure (3D) of MCT8 protein is unavailable in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). In the absence of 3D structures, computational methods are used for the structure prediction of proteins. Availability of 3D-model of MCT8 protein would significantly improve the development of new drugs for Allan?Herndon?Dudley syndrome (AHDS). In this study, multi-template homology modeling was used to predict the 3D structure of MCT8 protein. Picking the right set of templates for homology modeling is a difficult problem. This study identified the most suitable templates for the 3D structure prediction of MCT8. Moreover, a good quality 3D model of MCT8 was predicted based on multiple templates using MODELLERv9.17.