PTMVision: An Interactive Visualization Webserver for Post-translational Modifications of Proteins

Recent improvements in methods and instruments used in
mass spectrometry
have greatly enhanced the detection of protein post-translational
modifications (PTMs). On the computational side, the adoption of open
modification search strategies now allows for the identification of
a wide variety of PTMs, potentially revealing hundreds to thousands
of distinct modifications in biological samples. While the observable
part of the proteome is continuously growing, the visualization and
interpretation of this vast amount of data in a comprehensive fashion
is not yet possible. There is a clear need for methods to easily investigate
the PTM landscape and to thoroughly examine modifications on proteins
of interest from acquired mass spectrometry data. We present PTMVision,
a web server providing an intuitive and simple way to interactively
explore PTMs identified in mass spectrometry-based proteomics experiments
and to analyze the modification sites of proteins within relevant
context. It offers a variety of tools to visualize the PTM landscape
from different angles and at different levels, such as 3D structures
and contact maps, UniMod classification summaries, and site specific
overviews. The web server’s user-friendly interface ensures
accessibility across diverse scientific backgrounds. PTMVision is
available at https://ptmvision-tuevis.cs.uni-tuebingen.de/.