Motif-driven design of protein–protein interfaces

Protein–protein interfaces regulate many critical processes for cellular function. The ability to accurately control and regulate these molecular interactions is of major interest for biomedical and synthetic biology applications, as well as to address fundamental biological questions. In recent years, computational protein design has emerged as a tool for designing novel protein–protein interactions with functional relevance. Although attractive, these computational tools carry a steep learning curve. In order to make some of these methods more accessible, we present detailed descriptions and examples of ROSETTA computational protocols for the design of functional protein binders using seeded protein interface design. In these protocols, a motif of known structure that interacts with the target site is grafted into a scaffold protein, followed by design of the surrounding interaction surface.