SOSUI

SOSUI is a free online tool that predicts a part of the secondary structure of proteins from a given amino acid sequence (AAS). The main objective is to determine whether the protein in question is a soluble or a transmembrane protein.

History

SOSUI's algorithm was developed in 1996 at Tokyo University. The name means as much as "hydrophobic", an allusion to its molecular "clients".

How SOSUI works

First of all, SOSUI looks for α helices that are relatively easy to predict, taking into account the known helical potentials of the given amino acid sequence(AAS). The much more difficult task is to differentiate between the α helices in soluble proteins and the ones in transmembrane proteins, the α helix being a very common secondary structure pattern in proteins.

SOSUI uses 4 characteristics of the AAS in its prediction:

"hydropathy index" (Kyte und Doolittle 1982)

weighted presence of amphiphilic amino acids (AA) and their localization: "amphiphilicity index"

the AA's charge

the length of the AAS

An important improvement compared to Kyte und Doolittle's "hydropathy index", which relies entirely on one characteristic, is the introduction of the so-called "amphiphilicity index". It is calculated by giving every AA with an amphiphilic residue a certain value which is derived from the AA's molecular structure. To meet SOSUI's criteria for amphiphilicity, the polar, hydrophilic residue may not be linked directly to the beta-carbon; there must be at least one apolar carbon interposed (therefore only lysine, arginine, histidine, glutamic acid, glutamine, tryptophan and tyrosine are relevant).

SOSUI then looks for accumulations of amphiphilic AAs at the ends of α helices, which seems to be typical for transmembrane α helices (it makes the transmembrane position the energetically best one for these α helices by placing amphiphilic AAs at the lipid-water boundary and is thus co-responsible for the protein's correct localization).