Patent ID: 7698070

Claim:
A method for predicting a part of an amino acid sequence, the method comprising using sufficiently programmed computer for profiling an amino acid sequence to identify a part of said amino acid sequence which is predicted to promotes aggregation of a polypeptide defined by said sequence, the method comprising: determining aggregation propensities for a plurality of parts of said sequence to determine an aggregation propensity profile for said sequence; comparing said aggregation propensities of said aggregation propensity profile to determine one or more parts of said sequence which are predicted to promote aggregation; wherein said determining comprises determining, for each of a plurality of amino acids of said sequence, a hydrophobicity value, at least one of an α-helix propensity value and β-sheet propensity value, a charge value, and a pattern value representing a pattern of at least one of hydrophilic and hydrophobic amino acids in the vicinity of each said amino acid, multiplying each of said values by a scaling factor, and summing said scaled values to determine said aggregation propensities; and outputting a result to at least one of a memory and a display device.