ORCAN—a web-based meta-server for real-time detection and functional annotation of orthologs

Summary: ORCAN (ORtholog sCANner) is a web-based meta-server for one-click evolutionary and functional annotation of protein sequences. The server combines information from the most popular orthology-prediction resources, including four tools and four online databases. Functional annotation utilizes five additional comparisons between the query and identified homologs, including: sequence similarity, protein domain architectures, functional motifs, Gene Ontology term assignments and a list of associated articles. Furthermore, the server uses a plurality-based rating system to evaluate the orthology relationships and to rank the reference proteins by their evolutionary and functional relevance to the query. Using a dataset of ∼1 million true yeast orthologs as a sample reference set, we show that combining multiple orthology-prediction tools in ORCAN increases the sensitivity and precision by 1–2 percent points. Availability and Implementation: The service is available for free at http://www.combio.pl/orcan/.See it on Scoop.it, via Viruses and Bioinformatics from Virology.uvic.ca
ORCAN—a web-based meta-server for real-time detection and functional annotation of orthologs
Source: Viral Bioinformatics