Database Commons
Database Commons

a catalog of worldwide biological databases

Database Profile

DescribePROT

General information

URL: http://biomine.cs.vcu.edu/servers/DESCRIBEPROT/
Full name: Database of Structure and Function Residue-based Predictions of Proteins
Description: DescribePROT is a freely available online database of structural and functional descriptors of proteins at the amino acid level. It provides access to 13 diverse descriptors that include sequence conservation, putative secondary structure, solvent accessibility, intrinsic disorder, and signal peptides, and putative annotations of residues that interact with proteins, peptides and nucleic acids. DescribePROT includes 7.8 billion predictions for 1.4 million proteins from 83 complete proteomes of popular model organisms.
Year founded: 2020
Last update: 2024-11-23
Version: v3.0
Accessibility:
Unaccessible
Country/Region: United States

Funding support

  • National Science Foundation (2146027)
  • National Science Foundation (2125218)
  • Robert J. Mattauch Endowment funds
  • National Institutes of Health (R35-GM126985)

Contact information

University/Institution: Virginia Commonwealth University
Address:
City: Richmond
Province/State: Virginia
Country/Region: United States
Contact name (PI/Team): Lukasz Kurgan
Contact email (PI/Helpdesk): lkurgan@vcu.edu

Publications

39576581
DescribePROT Database of Residue-Level Protein Structure and Function Annotations. [PMID: 39576581]
Zhao B, Basu S, Kurgan L.

DescribePROT is a freely available online database of structural and functional descriptors of proteins at the amino acid level. It provides access to 13 diverse descriptors that include sequence conservation, putative secondary structure, solvent accessibility, intrinsic disorder, and signal peptides, and putative annotations of residues that interact with proteins, peptides and nucleic acids. These data can be used to elucidate protein functions, to support efforts to develop therapeutics, and to develop and evaluate future predictors of protein structure and function. DescribePROT includes 7.8 billion predictions for 1.4 million proteins from 83 complete proteomes of popular model organisms. This information can be downloaded at multiple levels of scope (entire database, specific organisms, and individual proteins) and can be interacted with using a graphical interface that simultaneously displays data on multiple descriptors. We describe the contents of this resource, provide directions on how to use its interface, and offer instructions on how to obtain and interact with the underlying data. Moreover, we briefly discuss plans for a future expansion of this database. DescribePROT is available at http://biomine.cs.vcu.edu/servers/DESCRIBEPROT/ .

Methods Mol Biol. 2025:2867() | 1 Citations (from Europe PMC, 2026-03-28)
37933852
DescribePROT in 2023: more, higher-quality and experimental annotations and improved data download options. [PMID: 37933852]
Basu S, Zhao B, Biró B, Faraggi E, Gsponer J, Hu G, Kloczkowski A, Malhis N, Mirdita M, Söding J, Steinegger M, Wang D, Wang K, Xu D, Zhang J, Kurgan L.

The DescribePROT database of amino acid-level descriptors of protein structures and functions was substantially expanded since its release in 2020. This expansion includes substantial increase in the size, scope, and quality of the underlying data, the addition of experimental structural information, the inclusion of new data download options, and an upgraded graphical interface. DescribePROT currently covers 19 structural and functional descriptors for proteins in 273 reference proteomes generated by 11 accurate and complementary predictive tools. Users can search our resource in multiple ways, interact with the data using the graphical interface, and download data at various scales including individual proteins, entire proteomes, and whole database. The annotations in DescribePROT are useful for a broad spectrum of studies that include investigations of protein structure and function, development and validation of predictive tools, and to support efforts in understanding molecular underpinnings of diseases and development of therapeutics. DescribePROT can be freely accessed at http://biomine.cs.vcu.edu/servers/DESCRIBEPROT/.

Nucleic Acids Res. 2023:() | 10 Citations (from Europe PMC, 2026-03-28)
33119734
DescribePROT: database of amino acid-level protein structure and function predictions. [PMID: 33119734]
Zhao B, Katuwawala A, Oldfield CJ, Dunker AK, Faraggi E, Gsponer J, Kloczkowski A, Malhis N, Mirdita M, Obradovic Z, Söding J, Steinegger M, Zhou Y, Kurgan L.

We present DescribePROT, the database of predicted amino acid-level descriptors of structure and function of proteins. DescribePROT delivers a comprehensive collection of 13 complementary descriptors predicted using 10 popular and accurate algorithms for 83 complete proteomes that cover key model organisms. The current version includes 7.8 billion predictions for close to 600 million amino acids in 1.4 million proteins. The descriptors encompass sequence conservation, position specific scoring matrix, secondary structure, solvent accessibility, intrinsic disorder, disordered linkers, signal peptides, MoRFs and interactions with proteins, DNA and RNAs. Users can search DescribePROT by the amino acid sequence and the UniProt accession number and entry name. The pre-computed results are made available instantaneously. The predictions can be accesses via an interactive graphical interface that allows simultaneous analysis of multiple descriptors and can be also downloaded in structured formats at the protein, proteome and whole database scale. The putative annotations included by DescriPROT are useful for a broad range of studies, including: investigations of protein function, applied projects focusing on therapeutics and diseases, and in the development of predictors for other protein sequence descriptors. Future releases will expand the coverage of DescribePROT. DescribePROT can be accessed at http://biomine.cs.vcu.edu/servers/DESCRIBEPROT/.

Nucleic Acids Res. 2021:49(D1) | 56 Citations (from Europe PMC, 2026-03-28)

Ranking

All databases:
1019/6932 (85.314%)
Gene genome and annotation:
327/2039 (84.012%)
Structure:
134/972 (86.317%)
Interaction:
191/1200 (84.167%)
1019
Total Rank
66
Citations
13.2
z-index

Community reviews

Not Rated
Data quality & quantity:
Content organization & presentation
System accessibility & reliability:

Word cloud

Related Databases

Citing
Cited by

Record metadata

Created on: 2023-11-16
Curated by:
Jinbiao Wang [2025-08-06]
Lina Ma [2023-11-16]
Lukasz Kurgan [2023-11-16]