IDA2GO - Improving Domain Annotation and Representation within InterPro

蛋白质结构域是蛋白质内部离散的、稳定的结构。它们通常形成不同的操作单位，负责特定的功能，如结合给定的分子或催化酶反应中的特定步骤。为了充分理解蛋白质的生物学作用，有必要了解结构域的分布、进化和功能。InterPro的核心概念是，如果两个蛋白质看起来相似(无论是在结构上和/或在序列水平上)，它们很有可能具有相似或相同的功能。具有相同功能或结构的蛋白质之间的相似之处和不同之处可以建模；InterPro将由此产生的预测模型称为“签名”。InterPro使用来自几个不同数据库的签名(每个数据库都有特定的利基或生物焦点)来预测有关蛋白质的信息。InterPro将签名整合在一起，如果它们似乎代表相同的蛋白质家族、结构域或位点。此外，还添加了有关签名及其匹配的蛋白质类型的简明信息，包括来自基因本体论(GO)的术语，这是一个受控词汇，用于以标准化的方式描述生物功能、过程和基因的亚细胞定位。InterPro定期计算UniProtKB蛋白质知识库中序列中结构域的存在。它通过网站和软件工具提供这些信息。然而，这些数据的显示和计算方式并不是最优的，可能会导致试图使用它们的生物学家感到困惑。同样，由于结构域可以在具有完全不同整体功能的蛋白质中找到，因此很难用GO术语准确地注释单个结构域。IDA2GO项目旨在改进在InterPro数据库中表示和注释结构域的方式，以便科学家能够利用这些数据对基因组进行功能注释，发现新的结构域，并更好地了解蛋白质是如何进化的。

Protein domains are discrete, stable structures within proteins. They typically form distinct operational units with responsibility for specific functions, such as binding a given molecule or catalyzing a specific step in an enzymatic reaction. To fully understand a protein's biological role, it is necessary to understand domain distribution, evolution and function.The core concept of InterPro is that if two proteins look similar (either structurally and/or at the sequence-level), there is a strong possibility that they will have a similar or identical function. The similarities and differences between proteins that have the same function or structure can be modelled; InterPro calls the resultant predictive models "signatures". InterPro uses signatures from several different databases (each of which has a particular niche or biological focus) to predict information about proteins. InterPro integrates together signatures if they appear to represent the same protein family, domain or site. In addition, concise information about the signatures and the types of proteins they match is added, including terms from the Gene Ontology (GO), a controlled vocabulary that is used to describe biological functions, processes and the subcellular localisation of genes in a standardised way. InterPro regularly calculates the presence of domains in sequences from the UniProtKB protein knowledgebase. It makes this information available through websites and software tools. However, the manner in which these data are displayed and calculated is sub-optimal and can lead to confusion for the biologists attempting to use them. Similarly, because domains can be found in proteins which have quite different overall functions, it is difficult to accurately annotate individual domains with GO terms.The IDA2GO project intends to improve the way that domains are represented and annotated within the InterPro database so that scientists are able to utilise these data for the functional annotation of genomes, the discovery of novel domains and to better understand how proteins evolve.