I-TASSER server: new development for protein structure and function predictions

TLDR

I‑TASSER is an online platform for automated protein structure prediction and structure‑based function annotation, widely used in biology and medicine, and has received extensive user feedback. This article summarizes recent server updates designed to meet user needs and enhance modeling accuracy. I‑TASSER identifies templates via multiple threading alignments, builds full‑length models with iterative fragment assembly, refines atomic‑level details, estimates local quality, and annotates functions by matching models to known proteins. The updates are expected to improve server quality and facilitate high‑resolution structure and function prediction for the community.

Abstract

The I-TASSER server (http://zhanglab.ccmb.med.umich.edu/I-TASSER) is an online resource for automated protein structure prediction and structure-based function annotation. In I-TASSER, structural templates are first recognized from the PDB using multiple threading alignment approaches. Full-length structure models are then constructed by iterative fragment assembly simulations. The functional insights are finally derived by matching the predicted structure models with known proteins in the function databases. Although the server has been widely used for various biological and biomedical investigations, numerous comments and suggestions have been reported from the user community. In this article, we summarize recent developments on the I-TASSER server, which were designed to address the requirements from the user community and to increase the accuracy of modeling predictions. Focuses have been made on the introduction of new methods for atomic-level structure refinement, local structure quality estimation and biological function annotations. We expect that these new developments will improve the quality of the I-TASSER server and further facilitate its use by the community for high-resolution structure and function prediction.