Exhaustive In-silico Simulation of Single Amino Acid Insertion and Deletion Mutations

The effects of insertion and deletion mutations (InDels) on protein structures are understudied because performing such experiments in vitro is prohibitive. Consequently, little real world data exists for these types of mutations, despite many diseases being caused by InDels. Computational modeling can support researchers in their efforts to understand the impacts of InDels. In this work we present an in silico approach to generate all exhaustive InDel mutants for a protein. We analyze the effects of the InDels via heatmaps and other visualizations using a variety of metrics, including rigidity analysis and structural data about the mutants relative to the wild type.