Many people want to analyse their favourite protein sequences to look for
alpha-helical coiled coils. Coiled coils are important features of many
classes of protein, including transcription factors (so-called "leucine
zippers"), fibrous proteins such as intermediate filaments, motor proteins
like kinesins and myosins, dystrophins and many others too numerous to
list. While useful computer prediction methods have been available for
several years, many of the major software packages used for protein
sequence analysis are lacking in this respect.
To make it easier to find out what resources are available for coiled coil
prediction, I have set up a WWW page at this URL:
http://www.wi.mit.edu/matsudaira/coilcoil.html
Resources available through this site include my own coiled coil prediction
program for the Macintosh ("MacStripe"), as well as links to software at
other sites and to servers which allow you to do coiled-coil prediction
over the web.
I hope that this page will be useful to anyone who wants to know how to
identify and analyse coiled coil regions in proteins.
I would appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have regarding
the site- and remember that things will change, so it may be worth your
while to look back occasionally.
--
Alex Knight
knight at wi.mit.edu
My opinions are mine alone.
