BION web server: predicting non-specifically bound surface ions.

Motivation: Ions are essential component of the cell and frequently are found bound to various macromolecules, in particular to proteins. A binding of an ion to a protein greatly affects protein's biophysical characteristics and needs to be taken into account in any modeling approach. However, ion's bounded positions cannot be easily revealed experimentally, especially if they are loosely bound to macromolecular surface.

Results: Here, we report a web server, the BION web server, which addresses the demand for tools of predicting surface bound ions, for which specific interactions are not crucial; thus, they are difficult to predict. The BION is easy to use web server that requires only coordinate file to be inputted, and the user is provided with various, but easy to navigate, options. The coordinate file with predicted bound ions is displayed on the output and is available for download.