ModView, visualization of multiple protein sequences and structures

Abstract

Summary: We describe ModView, a web application for visualization of multiple protein sequences and structures. ModView integrates a multiple structure viewer, a multiple sequence alignment editor, and a database querying engine. It is possible to interactively manipulate hundreds of proteins, to visualize conservative and variable residues, active and binding sites, fragments, and domains in protein families, as well as to display large macromolecular complexes such as ribosomes or viruses. As a Netscape plug-in, ModView can be included in HTML pages along with text and figures, which makes it useful for teaching and presentations. ModView is also suitable as a graphical interface to various databases because it can be controlled through JavaScript commands and called from CGI scripts.