We have also discovered that out-clamps, in-plugs, and oligomerization are 3 general mechanisms for stabilizing weakly stable TM regions. In addition, we have found that extended and contiguous weakly stable regions often signal the existence of an oligomer and that strands located in the interfaces of protein-protein interactions are considerably less stable. Based on these observations, we can predict oligomerization states and can identify the interfaces of protein-protein interactions for beta-barrel membrane proteins by using either structure or sequence information