A local probe for evolutionary conformational changes of proteins

Structures of proteins within a family differ mostly locally while usually preserving the overall conformation. How such localized variations are linked to the evolution of protein gene and function is not generally understood, and so far, the deformations were analyzed by linear frameworks. Here, we employ a purely geometric, nonlinear measure of local conformational changes and study its statistics. In particular, we examine how the measure correlates with statistics of point mutations and coevolution in protein families.