INTERPRO: The creation of an integrated resource of protein domains and functional sites and its application to accelerate protein functional analysis

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 98.0202-1

Key words (English)

Protein homology domains; protein function prediction; databases; profile; pattern

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: BIO4CT980052

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 4. Frame Research Programme - 4.1 Biotechnology

Short description (English)

See abstract

Partners and International Organizations (English)

Coordinator: EMBL, Hinxton Cambridge (UK)

Abstract (English)

The different genome projects already finished or currently running are producing a huge amount of crude data. These sequences need to be analyzed and classified into databases according to their function to facilitate their access by the life sciences researchers. A number of databases on protein families and domains like PROSITE, PRINTS, Pfam and ProDom have become vital resources for identifying distant relationships in novel sequences, and hence for predicting protein functions and structures. The InterPro project has succeeded in the incorporation of these databases into an integrated resource. InterPro is already used to enhance the functional annotation of SWISS-PROT and TrEMBL. The usefulness of InterPro was also demonstrated by its used in the annotation of the human and drosophila genomes .
The database is distributed with tools by anonymous FTP and through WWW servers since June 2000. We are currently running release 3.1 containing 3915 entries.
Our group was involved in merging entries, writing documentations, checking the quality and consistency of the database, and creating new entries. We concentrated on profiles describing newly identified domains or important old ones.
During the founding period we also adopted new strategies to increase the sensitivity of our new profiles based on structural alignment. We also refered more systematically to structural information in the documentation. The sensitivity of the technique was also increased by the introduction of the circular profile. This tool allows description of special repeat regions.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 98.0202-1