A novel method for automatic functional annotation of proteins.
BACKGROUND
To cope with the increasing amount of sequence data, reliable automatic annotation tools are required. The TrEMBL database contains together with SWISS-PROT nearly all publicly available protein sequences, but in contrast to SWISS-PROT only limited functional annotation. To improve this situation, we had to develop a method of automatic annotation that produces highly reliable functional prediction using the language and the syntax of SWISS-PROT.


RESULTS
An algorithm was developed and successfully used for the automatic annotation of a testset of unknown proteins. The predicted information included description, function, catalytic activity, cofactors, pathway, subcellular location, quaternary structure, similarity to other protein, active sites, and keywords. The algorithm showed a low coverage (10%), but a high specificity and reliability.


BACKGROUND
The results can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/sp_tr_nrdb. The source code is available on request from the authors.
Fleischmann
W
W
The EMBL Outstation - The European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK. fleischmann@ebi.ac.uk
Möller
S
S
Gateau
A
A
Apweiler
R
R
D000465:Algorithms; D016208:Databases, Factual; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software
D011506:Proteins