The orientation between the backbone residues of proteins is defined based on the local configurations and the corresponding preferences are analyzed by statistics.It is found that all the residue pairs have some specific preferences of orientations.The statistical analysis is mainly concen-trated in the orientational distributions for two kinds of groupings of residues based on the hydrophobicity and secondary structural features.The statistics for such two types of groupings shows different orienta-tional preferences.It is found that for the former grouping the orientational preference is rather weak, while for the later a kind of strong orientational pref-erences.This suggests that the formation of local structures and of secondary structures are highly related to the orientational preferences.
