Accelerating cancer research through data management

Join this Community

The primary goal of the IDP Community is to advance the understanding of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) through the development of standards, tools and resources for their identification, analysis and functional characterisation. IDPs and more generally intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) of proteins have important biological roles, such as cell signalling, and their malfunction is often connected to (human) diseases. A better understanding of IDP function and interactions can therefore aid in developing new drug strategies for human diseases.

Community objectives

The following objectives guide the IDP Community in addressing its long-term goal. These are dynamic, time-limited objectives that will evolve as the community grows:

Simplify IDP data access and dissemination
Curate literature focussed on IDPs
Develop a centralised knowledge base for IDP data
Integrate IDP data into ELIXIR Core Data Resources
Improve tools for IDP analysis

Community impact

The IDP Community has made significant contributions in the field of IDP research, with the following highlights:

Ongoing projects

ELIXIR projects – Advancing structural and functional ontologies of disordered proteins
H2020 funded MSC-Research and Innovation Staff Exchange project (IDPfun2)– Integrating novel data, AI and molecular behaviour to expand functional characterization of IDPs
HORIZON Project (IDP2Biomed) – Bringing IDPs to biomedical applications

Past activities and projects

Standardising IDP Data: A project completed in 2021 aimed at standardising data related to IDPs
Improving IDP tools: A 2021 project focused on enhancing interoperability of IDP tools within the ELIXIR infrastructure
Community White Paper: Published in 2019, detailing the Community's foundational goals and strategies
Data Integration and Standardisation: A 2018 project focused on integrating and standardising IDP data

Tools and databases

DisProt, MobiDB and PED represent cutting edge IDP analysis and are integrated into ELIXIR Core Data Resources, such as InterPro and UniProtKB.

Ontologies and vocabularies

The Community maintains IDP-related Gene Ontology and Evidence and Conclusion Ontology terms.
MIADE Guidelines: In collaboration with the IDP working group of the HUPO-PSI initiative, IDP Community contributed the Minimum Information About Disorder Experiments (MIADE), establishing guidelines for reporting IDP experiments.

CAID (Challenge)

The Critical Assessment of Protein Intrinsic Disorder Prediction (CAID),was established in 2018 to determine the state-of-the-art in predicting intrinsically disordered regions and the subset of residues involved in binding. Three CAID rounds were performed.
All results are available on the comprehensive CAID Portal.

Training and resources

Online and in-person training is available for curators and users to share knowledge on curation, analysis and interpretation of IDPs using the resources of the ELIXIR infrastructure.

E-learning courses on Biocuration in DisProt and Experimental Techniques for the Characterisation of IDPs, integrated in the ELIXIR Slovenia Platform and listed on TeSS
In-person training sessions are designed to provide immersive learning experiences in various locations – IDPfun Annual Argentina Visit 2023; PhaseAge training school
Webinars:
- DisProt and MobiDB:Exploring the structural and functional annotations of IDPs
- An introduction to DisProt: A look at its features
- MobiDB: A database focussed on protein disorder and mobility annotations
Materials for curators and users:
- Best practices and guidelines for curating and analysing IDPs, available for Community members