TMCrys: Predict propensity of success for transmembrane protein crystallization

Abstract

Motivation: Transmembrane proteins (TMPs) are crucial in the life of the cells. As they have special properties, their structure is hard to determine––the PDB database consists of 2% TMPs, despite the fact that they are predicted to make up to 25% of the human proteome. Crystallization prediction methods were developed to aid the target selection for structure determination, however, there is a need for a TMP specific service. Results: Here, we present TMCrys, a crystallization prediction method that surpasses existing prediction methods in performance thanks to its specialization for TMPs. We expect TMCrys to improve target selection of TMPs.