VALDICHRO a software tool for validation of circular dichroism spectroscopic data and bioprocess quality analyses

The method of circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is widely used in studies of proteins to examine their structure, interactions and folding. It is also used by industry as a means of checking quality and consistency of proteins produced as pharmaceuticals. This project is to develop new software, VALIDICHRO, as a tool/resource for assessing the quality of CD data, as a standards test of research good practice, in bioprocessing quality control, and as a validation method for data generated that will be shared publicly in the Protein Circular Dichroism Data Bank repository.

Circular Dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is a widely used technique in structural biology research for examining protein structures, interactions and folding, and is used in the biopharm industry for quality analyses of bioprocesses and pharmaceutical products. Its broad usage is evidenced by the more than 5000 publications on CD of proteins in the past 3 years. There currently exist a number of validation/checking programs for crystallographic and NMR data, such as PROCHECK and WHATIF, but no such validations programs exist for CD data. With the imminent launch of the Protein Circular Dichroism Data Bank (PCDDB), a repository for CD data supported by a BBSRC Tools and Resources Development grant, the need for such validation software is now paramount to ensure the integrity of the data bank and its utility for a wide range of bioinformatics and structural biology usages. In addition such software would provide a means of establishing standards for good practice and quality control both in research and in bioprocessing. This proposal is to create VALIDICHRO software, as a bioinformatics tool linked to data deposition in the PCDDB and as a standalone standard resource for checking the integrity and quality of data prior to publication and as a means of quality control.