Mimotopes are peptides mimicking a binding site, for example, an antibody-binding site on the antigen, a receptor-binding site on the ligand, and a drug-binding site on the drug target. These peptides are readily obtained through biopanning, a procedure of selecting binding partners from libraries constructed with phage display and other surface display technologies. Biopanning is like fishing. The libraries are compared to lakes or fishponds. The substance used to screen a library is termed target, which is compared to bait. Mimotopes are compared to fishes you caught, which mimic the binding site on the natural partner of target called template. As the mimic of binding site, mapping mimotopes to the structure of template may indicate the site on template that target binds to. Here, we present a collection of tools we developed for the mapping of binding site based on mimotope sequences and template structure.

Fisherman is a jerk on one end of a line waiting for a jerk on the other end. Biomolecular interaction is a surface on one side of an interface binding to a surface on the other side. Mapping such surface area (i.e. binding site) on drug target, receptor, and antigen is of great value. After happy fishing, it's time to clean them with tools in the SAROTUP suite and then decode them with tools in the MIMOX suite...