I have seen helical wheel projections used to illustrate amphipathic helices in proteins. Are there any other uses for these models?
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$\begingroup$ Welcome to Biology.SE! The first part of your question is opinion based (what does often mean) and thus is not appropriate for this site — in addition it is not clear how knowing the frequency of this type of diagram is helpful. The second part of your question seems more appropriate for bioinformatics.stackexchange.com since it is a technical rather than biological question. ——— Please take the time to check out the tour: biology.stackexchange.com/tour and then the help pages on how to ask questions on this site: biology.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask. Thanks! 😊 $\endgroup$ – tyersome Jul 29 at 20:57
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$\begingroup$ I agree with @tyersome — it’s a better fit for SE Bionformatics, especially if you ask more precise questions eg for a program that will generate them. $\endgroup$ – David Jul 29 at 21:18
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$\begingroup$ Apologies. I have edited the question. $\endgroup$ – Alex Johnson Jul 31 at 15:31
Helical wheel projections can be useful anytime you have a protein or peptide with one or more α-helical regions. They allow you to see whether any "property" is present along one side of a peptide. This can be useful in recognizing potential protein-protein interacting motifs such as leucine zippers.
The wikipedia article on "Helical wheels" also looks like a good place to start learning more about this.
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$\begingroup$ Sounds like the questions is asking for uses besides this one. $\endgroup$ – canadianer Jul 31 at 17:49