title: CaSPredictor: a new computer-based tool for caspase substrate prediction.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In vitro studies have shown that the most remarkable catalytic features of caspases, a family of cysteineproteases, are their stringent specificity to Asp (D) in the S1 subsite and at least four amino acids to the left of scissile bound. However, there is little information about the substrate recognition patterns in vivo. The prediction and characterization of proteolytic cleavage sites in natural substrates could be useful for uncovering these structural relationships.
  
  
  RESULTS
  PEST-like sequences rich in the amino acids Ser (S), Thr (T), Pro (P), Glu or Asp (E/D), including Asn (N) and Gln (Q) are adjacent structural/sequential elements in the majority of cleavage site regions of the natural caspase substrates described in the literature, supporting its possible implication in the substrate selection by caspases. We developed CaSPredictor, a software which incorporated a PEST-like index and the position-dependent amino acid matrices for prediction of caspase cleavage sites in individual proteins and protein datasets. The program predicted successfully 81% (111/137) of the cleavage sites in experimentally verified caspase substrates not annotated in its internal data file. Its accuracy and confidence was estimated as 80% using ROC methodology. The program was much more efficient in predicting caspase substrates when compared with PeptideCutter and PEPS software. Finally, the program detected potential cleavage sites in the primary sequences of 1644 proteins in a dataset containing 9986 protein entries.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Requests for software should be made to Dr José E. Belizário
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Supplementary information is available for academic users at site http://icb.usp.br/~farmaco/Jose/CaSpredictorfiles.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Garay-Malpartida
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Occhiucci
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alves
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Belizário
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D020169:Caspases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003546:Cysteine Endopeptidases / Q000737:chemistry; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011485:Protein Binding; D012372:ROC Curve; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012984:Software; D013379:Substrate Specificity
chemical_list: D020169:Caspases; D003546:Cysteine Endopeptidases