Mapping of physicochemical features onto surfaces of biomolecules can provide valuable insights
into their function. Such information can be used to characterize and identify similarities within surface
regions of proteins or nucleic acids.
The Surface Diver quantitatively describes
various physicochemical properties such as hydrophobicity, charge density, and electrostatic potential
on the protein surface, using a method based on 3D Spherical Harmonic Decomposition.
The method introduces a compact representation
of a given property defined on the surface of the molecule
using a finite set of rotation-invariant descriptors.
Rotation-invariance of these descriptors allows one
to compare proteins within a given set with respect
to their shape and physicochemical properties
without the need for any prior structural alignement.
