Protein-Sol: a web tool for predicting protein solubility from sequence

Protein solubility is an important property in industrial and therapeutic applications. Prediction is a challenge, despite a growing understanding of the relevant physicochemical properties. Protein-Sol is a web server for predicting protein solubility. Using available data for Escherichia coli protein solubility in a cell-free expression system, 35 sequence-based properties are calculated. Feature weights are determined from separation of low and high solubility subsets. The model returns a predicted solubility and an indication of the features which deviate most from average values. Two other properties are profiled in windowed calculation along the sequence: fold propensity, and net segment charge. The utility of these additional features is demonstrated with the example of thioredoxin. The Protein-Sol webserver is available at http://protein-sol.manchester.ac.uk. jim.warwicker@manchester.ac.uk.