TarO -- a target optimisation system for structural biology
What you can do:
A single point of reference for key bioinformatics analyses relevant to selecting proteins or domains for study by structural biology techniques.
Highlights:
- The protein sequence is analysed by 17 algorithms and compared to 8 databases.
- TarO gathers putative homologues, including orthologues, and then obtains predictions of properties for these sequences including crystallisation propensity, protein disorder and post-translational modifications.
- Analyses are run on a high-performance computing cluster, the results integrated, stored in a database and accessed through a web-based user interface.
- Output is in tabulated format and in the form of an annotated multiple sequence alignment (MSA) that may be edited interactively in the program Jalview.
- TarO also simplifies the gathering of additional annotations via the Distributed Annotation System, both from the MSA in Jalview and through links to Dasty2.
- Routes to other information gateways are included, for example to relevant pages from UniProt, COG and the Conserved Domains Database.
- Open access to TarO is available from a guest account with private accounts for academic use available on request.
- Future development of TarO will include further analysis steps and integration with the Protein Information Management System (PIMS), a sister project in the BBSRC 'Structural Proteomics of Rational Targets' initiative.
Keywords:
- crystallization propensity prediction
- ortholog searching
- sequence-based calculations
- structural biology
- target optimization
- protein target
- protein disorder
- post-translational modifications
Literature & Tutorials:
This record last updated: 07-22-2008