Razor

Razor: Toxin-Specific Signal Peptide Identification from N-Terminal Sequences

Razor detects signal peptides of secretory toxins by analyzing the first 23 N-terminal residues of eukaryotic proteins, enabling identification of toxin-associated secretion signals across kingdoms.

Key Features:

• Identification of Toxin-Specific Signal Peptides: Analyzes the first 23 N-terminal residues to detect signal peptides characteristic of secretory toxins in eukaryotic proteins.
• Non-Homology-Based Approach: Identifies known and novel toxin classes across species using only N-terminal sequence features without relying on sequence similarity databases.
• Detection of Defensive Proteins with Toxin-Like Signal Peptides: Identifies defensive proteins across kingdoms that possess toxin-like signal peptides, including defensin and defensin-like protein families and phospholipase families, supporting convergent evolution analyses.

Scientific Applications:

• Secretory Protein and Evolutionary Analysis: Supports studies of protein translocation, toxin secretion, horizontal gene transfer, convergent evolution, and cross-kingdom comparison of secretory protein features.

Methodology:

Analyzes physicochemical and sequence features of the first 23 N-terminal residues of eukaryotic proteins to detect toxin-associated signal peptides using a non-homology-based strategy independent of sequence similarity searches.