PASS (Putative Active Sites with Spheres) is a simple computational tool th
at uses geometry to characterize regions of buried volume in proteins and t
o identify positions likely to represent binding sites based upon the size,
shape, and burial extent of these volumes. Its utility as a predictive too
l for binding site identification is tested by predicting known binding sit
es of proteins in the PDB using both complexed macromolecules and their cor
responding apo-protein structures. The results indicate that PASS can serve
as a front-end to fast docking. The main utility of PASS lies in the fact
that it can analyze a moderate-size protein (similar to 30 kDa) in under 20
s, which makes it suitable for interactive molecular modeling, protein dat
abase analysis, and aggressive virtual screening efforts. As a modeling too
l, PASS (i) rapidly identifies favorable regions of the protein surface, (i
i) simplifies visualization of residues modulating binding in these regions
, and (iii) provides a means of directly visualizing buried volume, which i
s often inferred indirectly from curvature in a surface representation. PAS
S produces output in the form of standard PDB files, which are suitable for
any modeling package, and provides script files to simplify visualization
in Cerius2(R), InsightII(R), MOE(R), Quanta(R), RasMol(R), and Sybyl(R). PA
SS is freely available to all.