PepHemo is a Flask framework-based web server that can be used to predict the hemolytic nature of peptides solely with their sequences as the input.
Predictions of the hemolytic nature of peptides can assist the experimental design of peptides or their analogs with lower hemolytic toxicities. Thus, it can accelerate lead optimization efforts in peptidic therapeutics development. Sometimes, it also helps elucidate why some proteins or their fragements cause lysis of erythrocytes membrane and leaking of hemoglobin into the blood plasma, which could lead to various side effects.
There are two ways to input data to PepHemo as described below, and a more detailed instruction is linked to the "Help" button above in the submission form.
In the submission form box on the web page, directly input the peptide sequences in the FASTA format. Examples are provided in the Form.
Upload a file containing all peptide sequences in the FASTA format, with ".fasta" as the file extension. An example file is also provided.
Since peptides are generally considered to be short chains of two or more amino acids, the program only accepts 20 natural amino acid types in the fasta format, using a single capital letter for each amino acid. Otherwise, the input will be considered as "illegal". If this happens, an error message will show up in the box area of the submission form. Please see Help for more details.
PepHemo is free for academic research with a user-friendly interface. Currently, no registration is needed to explore its full functionality. However, commercial users should contact us for agreement and support.
Please cite this web page. The manuscript has been submitted for peer-reviewed publication, and the preprint is currently available on bioRxiv. Therefore, you can also cite: Sequence-based Optimized Chaos Game Representation and Deep Learning for Peptide/Protein Classification. Huang B, Zhang E, Chaudhari R, Gimperlein H. bioRxiv 2022.09.10.507145; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.09.10.507145