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Physics and AstronomyAtomic and Molecular Physics and Spectroscopy

PSPP: A Protein Structure Prediction Pipeline for Computing Clusters

Authors: Jaques Reifman; Nela Zavaljevski; Anders Wallqvist; In-Chul Yeh; Valmik Desai; Michael S Lee; Rajkumar Bondugula; ARMY MEDICAL RESEARCH AND MATERIEL COMMAND FORT DETRICK MD
Abstract:
Background: Protein structures are critical for understanding the mechanisms of biological systems and, subsequently, for drug and vaccine design. Unfortunately, protein sequence data exceed structural data by a factor of more than 200 to 1. This gap can be partially filled by using computational protein structure prediction. While structure prediction Web servers are a notable option, they often restrict the number of sequence queries and/or provide a limited set of prediction methodologies. Therefore, we present a standalone protein structure prediction software package suitable for highthroughput structural genomic applications that performs all three classes of prediction methodologies: comparative modeling, fold recognition, and ab initio. This software can be deployed on a user's own high-performance computing cluster. Methodology/Principal Findings: The pipeline consists of a Perl core that integrates more than 20 individual software packages and databases, most of which are freely available from other research laboratories. The query protein sequences are first divided into domains either by domain boundary recognition or Bayesian statistics. The structures of the individual domains are then predicted using template-based modeling or ab initio modeling. The predicted models are scored with a statistical potential and an all-atom force field. The top-scoring ab initio models are annotated by structural comparison against the Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) fold database. Furthermore, secondary structure, solvent accessibility, transmembrane helices, and structural disorder are predicted. The results are generated in text, tab-delimited, and hypertext markup language (HTML) formats. So far, the pipeline has been used to study viral and bacterial proteomes.

Limitations: APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
Description: Journal article
Pages: 10
Report Date: Jul-2009
Report Number: A509305
Keywords relating to this report:
*CLUSTERING
*Molecular structure
*PREDICTIONS
*PROTEINS
BAYES THEOREM
BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTS
CLASSIFICATION
COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY
DRUGS
HYPERTEXT
INTERNET
INTERROGATION
LABORATORIES
METHODOLOGY
PIPELINES
REPRINTS
RESEARCH FACILITIES
SEQUENCES
SOFTWARE TOOLS
STATISTICS
THREE DIMENSIONAL
VACCINES
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