STINGpaint: WWW tool for sequence and MULTIPLE sequence alignment coloring


STINGpaint

STINGpaint was developed to allow the presentation of residue characteristics in the Sequence Frame. As a consequence, during development of STING project, we have slightly expanded on STINGpaint idea and adopted it for use with Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) coloring. It turns out that this tool was very interesting for people wanting to easily grasp specifically colored regions along the MSA. In addition, our STINGpaint is also a part of our ongoing work for STING-2, a package that will be able to show both sequnce alignmnts (in the Sequence Frame) and structures (in the Graphics Frame) for respective sequences!

STINGpaint now supports following sequence and MSA formats:


For test purposes, a user can access sample formats (given for each option at STINGpaint) and just copy_and_paste them into the working area of STINGpaint. It is our experience that analysis of MSA can be greatly enhanced using STINGpaint!


Note: We strongly suggest that user tries:
Using STINGpaint with different background color

and experiment with the size of the MSA to be STINGpainted! It is our experience that only CPU with 400MHz have acceptable speed for large MSA files, intended for STINGpaint with background color option! However, results might be very informative for the MSA analysis! Related to this issue, see work by W.R. Taylor (Protein Eng 1997 Jul;10(7):743-746; "Residual colours: a proposal for aminochromography").

Sequence color coding

Residues are color coded with respect to Hydrophobicity and charged groups!

  • Residues: AVLIMFP are colored gray! [small & hydrophobic]
  • Residues: STYNQWG are colored green [polar]
  • Residues: D E are colored red! [negatively charged]
  • Residues: R K are colored blue! [positively charged]
  • Residues: C is colored yellow! [disulfide bridge forming]
  • STINGpaint output sample:

            1                                                   50
     WRP25  SGPWSWCDPA TGYQVSALTG CRAMVKLQCV KSQVPEAVLR DCCQQLADIN 
     WRP26  SGPWMWCDPA TGYQVSALTG CRAMVKLQCV GSQVPEAVLR DCCQQLADIN 
     WRP24  SGPWMWCYPG QAFQVPALPA CRPLLRLQCN GCQVPEAVLR DCCQQLAHIS 
     WRP27  SGPWMWCDPA MGHRVRPLMG CRAMVKLQCV GNQVPEAIQR DCCQELANIT 
    AI1FAT  ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ 
    AI2FAT  ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ 
    
            51                                                 100
     WRP25  NEWCRCGDLS SMLRSVYQEL GVREGKVLPG CRKEVMKLTA ASVPEVCKVP 
     WRP26  NEWCRCGDLS SSLRSVYQEL GVREGKVLPG CRKEVMKLTA ASVPEVCKVP 
     WRP24  NEWCRCG~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ 
     WRP27  NNWCRCHDLG SMLNSVYQEL GAREGTVFPG CRKEVMKLTV ASVPAVCKVP 
    AI1FAT  ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ 
    AI2FAT  ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~