7^th Community Wide Experiment on the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction

CASP7 categories of prediction

Tertiary structure predictions. For CASP7, categories have been redefined to reflect developments in methods. The 'Template based modeling' category will include all former comparative modeling, homologous fold based models and some analogous fold based models. As in CASP6, the 'Template free modeling' category will include models of proteins with previously unseen folds and hard analogous fold based models.

High resolution models. This new category will include a subset of tertiary structure models where the backbone is sufficiently accurate that the details of side chains, loops, and active sites can be meaningfully assessed. Particular attention will be paid to success in refining these models beyond the quality obtained by simply copying a best template. A separate assessor will judge these high accuracy modeling cases.

Other predictions. As in previous CASPs, we will be assessing the ability of predictors to define boundaries of structural domains, detect residue-residue contacts and identify disordered regions in target proteins. Function prediction, a new category introduced in CASP6, will again be assessed in CASP7. As suggested at the CASP6 meeting, we will also evaluate ability of predictors to judge on quality of models (without knowing native structures) and reliability of predicting certain residues in the structure. Because of its importance in producing high accuracy models, in CASP7 special attention will also be given to model refinement.