GPCRserver: an accurate and novel G protein-coupled receptor predictor

Abstract

G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), also known as seven-transmembrane domain receptors, pass through the cellular membrane seven times and play diverse biological roles in the cells such as signaling, transporting of molecules and cell–cell communication. In this work, we develop a web server, namely the GPCRserver, which is capable of identifying GPCRs from genomic sequences, and locating their transmembrane regions. The GPCRserver contains three modules: (1) the Trans-GPCR for the transmembrane region prediction by using sequence evolutionary profiles with the assistance of neural network training, (2) the SSEA-GPCR for identifying GPCRs from genomic data by using secondary structure element alignment, and (3) the PPA-GPCR for identifying GPCRs by using profile-to-profile alignment. Our predictor was strictly benchmarked and showed its favorable performance in the real application. The web server and stand-alone programs are publicly available at http://genomics.fzu.edu.cn/GPCR/index.html.