metsite : index

MetSite: Metal binding site prediction
The rapid growth of the structural databases is resulting in a growing number of targets for which biological function is difficult to assign. Proteins exhibiting similar overall architecture may function very differently at the biological level. In many instances specific sites present within a protein structure provide important clues about biological function. Such sites include the catalytic centres of enzymes, small molecule binding sites and DNA binding sites. Metal ions in particular are known to perform a wide range of biological roles including the facilitation of important chemical reactions and the stabilising of protein structure. This server presents a novel method to rapidly predict the location of metal ion binding sites. The method, MetSite, uses a set of neural network classifiers trained to identify potential cation ion sites. MetSite has been developed using relative residue position and therefore does not require exact side-chain atom placement. This allows the results to be generated for predicted structures.

Select Metal Site Classifier
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Acceptable Use Policy

This server is run on a strictly best-efforts basis. We aim the service primarily at biologists trying to analyse their own sequences, as such the service is designed for users who submit small numbers of jobs to the queue in any given day.

We recognise that increasingly there are projects that need more substantial access to the server, but our current web servers have only limited capacity. Users running automated scripts against our services without prior agreement will be banned.

If we find that users are abusing the good faith of the service then their site access may be restricted or in extreme cases blocked completely. We hope such cases will be rare and we will only resort to blocking sites if repeat usage is severely interfering with the service for other users.

Since October 2010, users may submit unlimited jobs to the queue per day but users are limited to not more than 10 concurrent jobs. All results will remain available on our server for 5 days after which time they will be deleted. If you need high-priority or high-capacity access to our server then please contact us to discuss purchasing dedicated server capacity or the possibility of collaboration. For instance, if you are running a genomics project or meta-server that needs to submit hundreds of jobs per day to our server then we can now offer this capacity at cost. You remain welcome to make use of the free service, but only at the default low priority.

Data Protection

We do not require that users submit email addresses but users may find it useful to provide one in order to receive email alerts when their jobs complete. Email addresses submitted to our web site are used to return analysis results. We also use email addresses to track user's server usage and we may use them to contact users should any problems that may arise as a result of their data submissions. We will not use your email address for any other purpose or pass them on to third parties. Please be aware that this site uses Google Analytics to track user behaviour on this site.

Intellectual Property Disclaimer

All data submitted to this web service is made publicly accessible, and we do not guarantee confidentiality. This may affect your ability to seek intellectual property protection for your data. If you do not wish to publicly disclose your data you may either download our software or you can contact us to discuss the possibility of a collaboration

Commercial Use Enquiries

This server is available for commercial use. However all results generated are publicly accessible. If you wish to have secure private access or you wish to licence the relevant software please contact Ebisu. They can provide a very quick response to any commercial enquiries regarding access to our web servers, software, databases or bioinformatics consultancy services.