. 2018 Summer;17(2):es4. doi: 10.1187/cbe.17-12-0250

TABLE 9.

Alignment check (Step 4) for a low-rated (LR) CURA statement showing that the ability statement was supported by Steps 1–3 and each step added greater insight into the finalized CURA statement: Recognize how proteins that are closely related by evolution can have dramatically different functions

PICURA components	Supporting outputs
Step 1: Content analysis	Concepts detected: Protein motifs Protein homology Structure–function relationships Representations detected: Amino acid single-letter code alignment Superimposed protein ribbon structures
Step 2: Open-ended survey	“Some favor sequence homology to suggest function. While that is useful in some cases, I prefer a strong component of structural homology to suggest function.” “I use sequence and structural data to find similar proteins with a known or hypothesized function.” No specific mention of how related proteins can have different functions
Step 3: Interview	“Just because you have a catalytic triad that doesn’t mean that an enzyme will cut proteins, maybe it will cut lipids, maybe it will cut something else. I’m hoping that they’ll have some sort of grasp on the physical nature of proteins, you know, like the molecular weight of proteins, how they behave”

PICURA components

Supporting outputs

Step 1: Content analysis

Concepts detected:

Protein motifs
Protein homology
Structure–function relationships

Representations detected:

Amino acid single-letter code alignment
Superimposed protein ribbon structures

Step 2: Open-ended survey

“Some favor sequence homology to suggest function. While that is useful in some cases, I prefer a strong component of structural homology to suggest function.”
“I use sequence and structural data to find similar proteins with a known or hypothesized function.”
No specific mention of how related proteins can have different functions

Step 3: Interview

“Just because you have a catalytic triad that doesn’t mean that an enzyme will cut proteins, maybe it will cut lipids, maybe it will cut something else. I’m hoping that they’ll have some sort of grasp on the physical nature of proteins, you know, like the molecular weight of proteins, how they behave”