PRED-GPCR: GPCR recognition and family classification server

Abstract

The vast cell-surface receptor family of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) is the focus of both academic and pharmaceutical research due to their key role in cell physiology along with their amenability to drug intervention. As the data flow rate from the various genome and proteome projects continues to grow, so does the need for fast, automated and reliable screening for new members of the various GPCR families. PRED-GPCR is a free Internet service for GPCR recognition and classification at the family level. A submitted sequence or set of sequences, is queried against the PRED-GPCR library, housing 265 signature profile HMMs corresponding to 67 well-characterized GPCR families. Users query the server through a web interface and results are presented in HTML output format. The server returns all single-motif matches along with the combined results for the corresponding families. The service is available online since October 2003 at http://bioinformatics.biol.uoa.gr/PRED-GPCR. © Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved.