SUMOsp: a web server for sumoylation site prediction

Systematic dissection of the sumoylation proteome is emerging as an appealing but challenging research topic because of the significant roles sumoylation plays in cellular dynamics and plasticity. Although several proteome-scale analyzes have been performed to delineate potential sumoylatable proteins, the bona fide sumoylation sites still remain to be identified. Previously, we carried out a genome-wide analysis of the SUMO substrates in human nucleus using the putative motif psi-K-X-E and evolutionary conservation. However, a highly specific predictor for in silico prediction of sumoylation sites in any individual organism is still urgently needed to guide experimental design. In this work, we present a computational system SUMOsp--SUMOylation Sites Prediction, based on a manually curated dataset, integrating the results of two methods, GPS and MotifX, which were originally designed for phosphorylation site prediction. SUMOsp offers at least as good prediction performance as the only available method, SUMOplot, on a very large test set. We expect that the prediction results of SUMOsp combined with experimental verifications will propel our understanding of sumoylation mechanisms to a new level. SUMOsp has been implemented on a freely accessible web server at: http://bioinformatics.lcd-ustc.org/sumosp/.