Grantham score

The Grantham score attempts to predict the distance between two amino acids, in an evolutionary sense. A lower Grantham score reflects less evolutionary distance. A higher Grantham score reflects a greater evolutionary distance. Higher Grantham scores are considered more deleterious:

  • The more distant two amino acids are, the less likely the amino acids are to be substituted with one another.

  • The more distant two amino acids are, the more damaging is their substitution.

The distance scores published by Grantham range from 5 to 215. A substitution of isoleucine for leucine, or of leucine for isoleucine, has a score of 5 (and is predicted to be tolerated). A substitution cysteine for tryptophan, or of tryptophan for cysteine, has a score of 215. Any variation involving cysteine has a high or very high Grantham score (and is predicted to be deleterious).

For more information on Grantham scores, see the following sites:

Related Topics
Parent topic: Annotation sources