AntiCP 2.0: An updated model for predicting anticancer peptides

Increasing use of therapeutic peptides for treating cancer has received considerable attention of the scientific community in the recent years. The present study describes the in silico model developed for predicting and designing anticancer peptides (ACPs). ACPs residue composition analysis revealed the preference of A, F, K, L and W. Positional preference analysis revealed that residue A, F and K are preferred at N-terminus and residue L and K are preferred at C-terminus. Motif analysis revealed the presence of motifs like LAKLA, AKLAK, FAKL, LAKL in ACPs. Prediction models were developed using various input features and implementing different machine learning classifiers on two datasets main and alternate dataset. In the case of main dataset, ETree Classifier based model developed using dipeptide composition achieved maximum MCC of 0.51 and 0.83 AUROC on the training dataset. In the case of alternate dataset, ETree Classifier based model developed using amino acid composition performed best and achieved the highest MCC of 0.80 and AUROC of 0.97 on the training dataset. Models were trained and tested using five-fold cross validation technique and their performance was also evaluated on the validation dataset. Best models were implemented in the webserver AntiCP 2.0, freely available at https://webs.iiitd.edu.in/raghava/anticp2. The webserver is compatible with multiple screens such as iPhone, iPad, laptop, and android phones. The standalone version of the software is provided in the form of GitHub package as well as in docker technology.