Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access published online on May 30, 2007
Nucleic Acids Research, doi:10.1093/nar/gkm370
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Web Server Issue |
EVALLER: a web server for in silico assessment of potential protein allergenicity
1Linnaeus Centre for Bioinformatics, Uppsala Biomedical Centre (BMC), Uppsala University, P.O. Box 598, SE-751 24 Uppsala, Sweden, 2Division of Toxicology, National Food Administration, P.O. Box 622, SE-751 26 Uppsala, Sweden, 3Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 534, SE-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden, 4Department of Medical Sciences, Academical Hospital, SE-751 85 Uppsala, Sweden and 5Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 597, SE-750 24 Uppsala, Sweden
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +46 (0)18 17 57 52; Fax: +46 (0)18 10 58 48; Email: ulfh{at}slv.se
Received January 31, 2007. Revised April 8, 2007. Accepted April 26, 2007.
Bioinformatics testing approaches for protein allergenicity, involving amino acid sequence comparisons, have evolved appreciably over the last several years to increased sophistication and performance. EVALLER, the web server presented in this article is based on our recently published ‘Detection based on Filtered Length-adjusted Allergen Peptides’ (DFLAP) algorithm, which affords in silico determination of potential protein allergenicity of high sensitivity and excellent specificity. To strengthen bioinformatics risk assessment in allergology EVALLER provides a comprehensive outline of its judgment on a query protein's potential allergenicity. Each such textual output incorporates a scoring figure, a confidence numeral of the assignment and information on high- or low-scoring matches to identified allergen-related motifs, including their respective location in accordingly derived allergens. The interface, built on a modified Perl Open Source package, enables dynamic and color-coded graphic representation of key parts of the output. Moreover, pertinent details can be examined in great detail through zoomed views. The server can be accessed at http://bioinformatics.bmc.uu.se/evaller.html.