Prediction of Protein Binding Sites by Combining Several Methods

We have combined four different methods for the prediction of binding sites in proteins. The methods used included: data mining approach by Support Vector Machines, threading through protein structures, prediction of conserved residues on the protein surface by analysis of phylogenetic trees, and the Conservatism of Conservatism method of Mirny and Shakhnovich. We have combined all these methods together by developing consensus predictions. Our results show that the combination of all methods improves the accuracy of prediction over the accuracies of prediction of individual methods.