Naamati Guy, Askenazi Manor, Linial Michal
Computer Science and Engineering, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2009 Jul;37(Web Server issue):W363-8. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkp299. Epub 2009 May 8.
Toxins are detected in sporadic species along the evolutionary tree of the animal kingdom. Venomous animals include scorpions, snakes, bees, wasps, frogs and numerous animals living in the sea such as the stonefish, snail, jellyfish, hydra and more. Interestingly, proteins that share a common scaffold with animal toxins also exist in non-venomous species. However, due to their short length and primary sequence diversity, these, toxin-like proteins remain undetected by classical search engines and genome annotation tools. We construct a toxin classification machine and web server called ClanTox (Classifier of Animal Toxins) that is based on the extraction of sequence-driven features from the primary protein sequence followed by the application of a classification system trained on known animal toxins. For a given input list of sequences, from venomous or non-venomous settings, the ClanTox system predicts whether each sequence is toxin-like. ClanTox provides a ranked list of positively predicted candidates according to statistical confidence. For each protein, additional information is presented including the presence of a signal peptide, the number of cysteine residues and the associated functional annotations. ClanTox is a discovery-prediction tool for a relatively overlooked niche of toxin-like cell modulators, many of which are therapeutic agent candidates. The ClanTox web server is freely accessible at http://www.clantox.cs.huji.ac.il.
在动物王国的进化树上，毒素在一些散在的物种中被检测到。有毒动物包括蝎子、蛇、蜜蜂、黄蜂、青蛙以及众多生活在海洋中的动物，如石鱼、蜗牛、水母、水螅等等。有趣的是，与动物毒素具有共同结构支架的蛋白质在无毒物种中也存在。然而，由于它们长度较短且一级序列具有多样性，这些类毒素蛋白仍未被传统搜索引擎和基因组注释工具检测到。我们构建了一个名为ClanTox（动物毒素分类器）的毒素分类机器和网络服务器，它基于从蛋白质一级序列中提取序列驱动特征，随后应用在已知动物毒素上训练的分类系统。对于给定的来自有毒或无毒环境的序列输入列表，ClanTox系统预测每个序列是否为类毒素。ClanTox根据统计置信度提供一个正向预测候选者的排名列表。对于每个蛋白质，还会呈现额外信息，包括信号肽的存在、半胱氨酸残基的数量以及相关的功能注释。ClanTox是一种用于相对被忽视的类毒素细胞调节剂领域的发现预测工具，其中许多是治疗剂候选物。ClanTox网络服务器可通过http://www.clantox.cs.huji.ac.il免费访问。
