Protein Informative Tools - (Aug/11/2008 )

Hi...
New to this forum and field too....

I just started working towards solving the crystal structure of a protein.
But it is worth having some basic information about the protein in hand before we start any crystallizations, namely the protein's content (aromatic, aliphatic residues), pI of the protein, to which family of proteins does it actually belong etc.,

So, I am wondering if there is any Bioinformatic suite in which we can cumulatively get all the necessary information regarding any target protein...

Thanks in Advance
Dam

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) has a great set of tools for such an analysis, see for example the multiple search programs available, and the Statistical Analysis of Protein Sequences (SAPS) page.

Other resourses are available in the EMBOSS suite of programs; see an online server here, and a list of other servers is here. EMBOSS is open source, thus it's also available for free if you want to install it locally.

You might also use the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, which has a lot of information conveniently summarized for many proteins; for example, the entry for the E. coli beta-galactosidase gene is here. Note that the entries for orthologies, pathways, motifs, cross-references to other databases, structures, etc. are all clickable.