BAlaS: fast, interactive and accessible computational alanine-scanning using BudeAlaScan

Motivation

In experimental protein engineering, alanine-scanning mutagenesis involves the replacement of selected residues with alanine to determine the energetic contribution of each side chain to forming an interaction. For example, it is often used to study protein-protein interactions. However, such experiments can be time-consuming and costly, which has led to the development of programs for performing computational alanine-scanning mutagenesis (CASM) to guide experiments. While programs are available for this, there is a need for a real-time web application that is accessible to non-expert users.

Results

Here we present BAlaS, an interactive web application for performing CASM via BudeAlaScan and visualizing its results. BAlaS is interactive and intuitive to use. Results are displayed directly in the browser for the structure being interrogated enabling their rapid inspection. BAlaS has broad applications in areas such as drug discovery and protein-interface design.

Availability

BAlaS works on all modern browsers and is available through the following website: https://balas.app. The project is open source, distributed using an MIT license, and is available on GitHub (https://github.com/wells-wood-research/balas).