The Pratt program is able to discover patterns conserved in sets of unaligned protein sequences. On these pages you will find information about Pratt, related publications, and PrattWWW: a WWW interface that allows you to use Pratt on-line. This interface includes a visualistion (graphical display implemented using a Java applet) of where the discovered patterns are found in the different sequences.
Pratt is able to find patterns of a quite general form. For example, Pratt found in less than 30 seconds the pattern C-x(2,4)-C-x(3)-[LIVMFYWC]-x(8)-H-x(3,5)-H conserved in a set of 285 zinc finger protein sequenes. The sequences were given to Pratt unaligned, and no information was given about the pattern. Pratt will not always find interesting patterns this quickly, but it is a powerful tool that allows you to discovery conserved patterns when they exist.
Developed in the Bioinformatics group at the Dept. of Informatics, University of Bergen: