3D protein-protein docking using shape complementarity and fast alignment

In this paper, a novel approach for fast protein-protein docking based on geometric complementarity is introduced. Complementarity matching is achieved using a rotation-invariant 3D shape descriptor, the Shape Impact Descriptor (SID). Rotation invariance enables matching of equally-sized surface patches without the need for initial alignment. The candidate poses are computed using an intuitive alignment method, which is much faster than exhaustively searching the translational and rotational space of the ligand. The method yields competitive results when compared to other well-known geometry-based, rigid-docking approaches.