MOKCa-3D database: functional and structural analysis of missense mutations in cancer

Determining the functional consequence of missense mutations acquired in the development of cancer is critical to the understanding of the evolution and the therapeutic vulnerabilities of an individual tumour. Several million missense mutations associated with cancer have been reported across different databases with little functional annotation accompanying each mutation. We have designed the MOKCa-3D database, (https://bioinformaticslab.sussex.ac.uk/MOKCa-3D/) to enable the contextualization and interpretation of cancer somatic missense mutations, including the structural impact of the mutation on the 3D structure, and whether the mutation results in a gain or loss of the protein's function. For each protein, a sequence feature viewer enables interactive visualization of the amino acid sequence, missense mutations, post-translational modification sites, protein domains, active sites, binding sites, protein-protein interaction sites, and mutational frequency. The mutation-level page concisely presents functional insights for each individual mutation, and an interactive MOL* viewer highlights mutated residue on an AlphaFold protein structural model. The SAAP structural impact analysis pipeline was used to identify the structural impact of the mutation. MOKCa-3D concisely presents functional insights and structural impacts of cancer somatic missense mutations enabling users to interpret their functional consequences. It is freely accessible and easy to navigate, making it usable by the widest range of researchers.