Mutationmapper: a tool to aid the mapping of protein mutation data

Area of Science:

• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Increasing volumes of mutational data, including single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data and site-directed mutagenesis, necessitate efficient data management.
• Existing manually curated databases struggle to keep pace with the exponential growth of scientific literature on protein mutations.
• Automated text-mining approaches face challenges in linking extracted mutations to specific proteins and providing structural context.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an application, MutationMapper, for the automated extraction and contextualization of point mutations from scientific literature.
• To link identified mutations with their corresponding proteins and present this information within a structurally related protein family context.
• To provide researchers with a tool for immediate understanding of mutation significance in protein structure and function.

Main Methods:

• MutationMapper extracts point mutations from abstracts and validates them against UniProt protein sequences.
• The methodology prioritizes protein sequences over abstracts for more robust mutation validation.
• Results are visualized as mutations mapped onto protein sequences or multiple sequence alignments for comparative analysis.

Main Results:

• MutationMapper successfully extracts and maps point mutations from scientific abstracts.
• The application validates mutations against UniProt protein sequences, enhancing data accuracy.
• Visualizations on protein sequences and multiple sequence alignments facilitate the identification of equivalent mutation positions across related proteins.

Conclusions:

• MutationMapper offers a sustainable solution for managing and contextualizing the growing body of protein mutation data.
• The novel approach of starting with protein sequences improves mutation validation accuracy.
• The web-service application provides researchers with an invaluable tool for understanding protein mutations within their structural and functional context.