Contact number

In chemistry, a contact number (CN) is a simple solvent exposure measure that measures residue burial in proteins.[1] The definition of CN varies between authors, but is generally defined as the number of either C${\displaystyle \beta }$ or C${\displaystyle \alpha }$ atoms within a sphere around the C${\displaystyle \beta }$ or C${\displaystyle \alpha }$ atom of the residue. The radius of the sphere is typically chosen to be between 8 and 14Å.

see also Kissing number in the sphere packing problem

References

1. Keith A. Crandall; Jens Lagergren (2008). Algorithms in Bioinformatics: 8th International Workshop, WABI 2008, Karlsruhe, Germany, September 15–19, 2008, Proceedings Volume 5251 of Lecture notes in bioinformatics. Springer. p. 382. ISBN 3-540-87360-0.