SDAP (Structural Database of Allergenic Proteins) is a Web server that provides rapid, cross-referenced assess to the sequences, structures, and IgE epitopes of allergenic proteins. The SDAP core is a series of CGI scripts that process the user queries, interrogate the database, perform various computations related to protein allergenic determinants, and prepare the output HTML pages. The database component of SDAP contains information about the allergen name, source, sequence, structure, IgE epitopes, and literature references, and easy links to the major protein (PDB, SWISS-PROT, PIR, NCBI) and literature (PubMed, MEDLINE) on-line servers. The computational component in SDAP uses an original algorithm based on conserved properties of amino acid side chains to identify regions of known allergens similar to user-supplied peptides or selected from the SDAP database of IgE epitopes. This and other bioinformatics tools can be used to rapidly determine potential cross-reactivities between allergens and to screen novel proteins for the presence of IgE epitopes they may share with known allergens.
protein sequence protein family