November 1, 2009 (Vol. 29, No. 19)
URL:
http://supfam.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/SUPERFAMILY
Rating:
Strong Points: Variety of analysis tools
Weak Points: Nothing significant
Summary:
I guess I’m not altogether protein-minded, as the title of this site evokes images of in-laws, a family Christmas dinner, and sibling quarrels when I look at it. To perhaps your relief, this site has nothing to do with human familial relations, but rather those of structural and functional proteins. SuperFamily is a database of annotations for these proteins in all completely sequenced organisms. The term “superfamily” refers to a group of protein domains from different families that have a common evolutionary ancestor. Users can submit a protein or DNA sequence for family and superfamily level classification, view genome statistics, and display phylogenetic trees, to name just some of the features of the website. There is nothing fancy about the website, but there are many useful analysis tools hidden among the simple page text.
