SUPERFAMILY
Description: SUPERFAMILY is a popular resource that detects and classifies protein domains of known structure in genome sequences.
Small proteins are a single unit but larger proteins can be made up of multiple subunits we call domains. Domains are modular evolutionary blocks which form components of whole proteins via duplication and recombination of existing units. X-ray crystallography and NMR experiments provide the 3D atomic resolution structure of proteins allowing the domains to be grouped into related families which often share a common or related function. The SUPERFAMILY database contains a library of profiles of these domain families in the form of hidden Markov models. These models are a computational tool which can detect the presence of domains in the sequences of proteins.
Some years ago the complete human genome was experimentally characterised, giving us a list of all the sequences of the proteins. The genomes of many other organisms have also been sequenced and at this time we have the complete sequences for the proteins of thousands of organisms. The SUPERFAMILY model library is run against all the genomes to identify the domains in the proteins. The data produced by the SUPERFAMILY analysis can be used for example by biologists working on specific proteins in the laboratory, larger projects working on a whole genome, or to improve our understanding of molecular evolution across all genomes and all kingdoms of life.
The SUPERFAMILY website enables users to enter sequences to search against the model library. The results of the domain assignments to all the genomes are stored in a database and can also be viewed on the website. There are many tools and ways of browsing the data which allow the comparison of different organisms, proteins and domains to allow researchers to answer biological questions. The data, software and model library are available for people to download wholesale to carry out their own analysis. The information contained in SUPERFAMILY feeds into several other websites and resources, e.g. the ENSEMBL human genome website, which bring together different specialist sources of data to display alongside each other.
Amount: £487,800
Funding type: research
Start date: 2017-01-01
End date: 2021-09-29
Funded outputs count: 8
Funder award ID: BB/N019431/2
OpenAlex ID: G7991709496