title: SPAAN: a software program for prediction of adhesins and adhesin-like proteins using neural networks.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The adhesion of microbial pathogens to host cells is mediated by adhesins. Experimental methods used for characterizing adhesins are time-consuming and demand large resources. The availability of specialized software can rapidly aid experimenters in simplifying this problem. We have employed 105 compositional properties and artificial neural networks to develop SPAAN, which predicts the probability of a protein being an adhesin (Pad).
  
  
  RESULTS
  SPAAN had optimal sensitivity of 89% and specificity of 100% on a defined test set and could identify 97.4% of known adhesins at high Pad value from a wide range of bacteria. Furthermore, SPAAN facilitated improved annotation of several proteins as adhesins. Novel adhesins were identified in 17 pathogenic organisms causing diseases in humans and plants. In the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) associated human corona virus, the spike glycoprotein and nsps (nsp2, nsp5, nsp6 and nsp7) were identified as having adhesin-like characteristics. These results offer new lead for rapid experimental testing.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  SPAAN is freely available through ftp://203.195.151.45
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  ramu@igib.res.in.
authors.affiliation: G.N. Ramachandran Knowledge Center for Genome Informatics, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology Mall Road, Delhi 110 007, India.
authors.forename: Gaurav
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sachdeva
authors.forename: Kaushal
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Preti
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jain
authors.forename: Srinivasan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ramachandran
mesh_terms: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D008956:Models, Chemical; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D016415:Sequence Alignment / Q000379:methods*; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein / Q000379:methods*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012984:Software; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial; D020033:Protein Isoforms