Functional classification of protein toxins as a basis for bioinformatic screening.

ABSTRACT: Proteins are fundamental to life and exhibit a wide diversity of activities, some of which are toxic. Therefore, assessing whether a specific protein is safe for consumption in foods and feeds is critical. Simple BLAST searches may reveal homology to a known toxin, when in fact the protein may pose no real danger. Another challenge to answer this question is the lack of curated databases with a representative set of experimentally validated toxins. Here we have systematically analyzed over 10,000 manually curated toxin sequences using sequence clustering, network analysis, and protein domain classification. We also developed a functional sequence signature method to distinguish toxic from non-toxic proteins. The current database, combined with motif analysis, can be used by researchers and

SUBMITTER: Negi SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5655178 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature