A web server for transcription factor binding site prediction

Promoter prediction has gained increased attention in studies related to transcriptional regulation of gene expression.We developed a web server named PMSearch (Poly Matrix Search) which utilizes Position Frequency Matrices (PFMs) to predict transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) in DNA sequences. PMSearch takes PFMs (either user-defined or retrieved from local dataset which currently contains 507 PFMs from Transfac Public 7.0 and JASPAR) and DNA sequences of interest as the input, then scans the DNA sequences with PFMs and reports the sites of high scores as the putative binding sites. The output of the server includes 1) A plot for the distribution of predicted TFBS along the DNA sequence, 2) A table listing location, score and motif for each putative binding site, and 3) Clusters of predicted binding sites. PMSearch also provides links for accessing clusters of PFMs that are similar to the input PFMs to facilitate complicated promoter analysis. AVAILABILITY: PMSearch is available for free at http://www.nicemice.cn/bioinfo/PMS