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Updated: Jun 24, 2026

A Protocol for Computer-Based Protein Structure and Function Prediction
Published on: November 3, 2011
AllerTool: a web server for predicting allergenicity and allergic cross-reactivity in proteins
Zong Hong Zhang1, Judice L Y Koh, Guang Lan Zhang
1Institute for Infocomm Research, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119613. zhzhang@i2r.a-star.edu.sg
Unlabelled:
Assessment of potential allergenicity and patterns of cross-reactivity is necessary whenever novel proteins are introduced into human food chain. Current bioinformatic methods in allergology focus mainly on the prediction of allergenic proteins, with no information on cross-reactivity patterns among known allergens. In this study, we present AllerTool, a web server with essential tools for the assessment of predicted as well as published cross-reactivity patterns of allergens. The analysis tools include graphical representation of allergen cross-reactivity information; a local sequence comparison tool that displays information of known cross-reactive allergens; a sequence similarity search tool for assessment of cross-reactivity in accordance to FAO/WHO Codex alimentarius guidelines; and a method based on support vector machine (SVM). A 10-fold cross-validation results showed that the area under the receiver operating curve (A(ROC)) of SVM models is 0.90 with 86.00% sensitivity (SE) at specificity (SP) of 86.00%.
Availability:
AllerTool is freely available at http://research.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/AllerTool/.
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