Whitmore L, Chugh J K, Snook C F, Wallace B A
Department of Crystallography, Birkbeck College, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, UK.
J Pept Sci. 2003 Nov-Dec;9(11-12):663-5. doi: 10.1002/psc.533.
The peptaibols are a large family of membrane-active peptides with considerable sequence homology, but with different biological properties and three-dimensional structures. They constitute a rich resource of naturally occurring 'mutants' which are potentially valuable for structure/function studies of ion channels. A searchable on-line database of sequences and structures of the peptaibols has been created at http://www.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/peptaibol, as a resource for the biological and structural community. In this paper, the contents and organization of the website are discussed as well as procedures for submission of new entries to the database. At present, more than 300 peptaibol sequences are stored in the database. Each sequence entry contains its full literature reference and information about its biological source. Tools are provided for searching for specific peptaibol sequences or groupings of sequences, and for locating peptaibols containing specified sequence motifs. In addition the website acts as a database for structural information. The coordinates of all currently available peptaibol x-ray and NMR structures are included and complemented, where appropriate. with molecular graphics illustrations. These include figures of model channel structures and comparisons between different peptaibol structures. The peptaibol database thus provides a tool for ready access to information and a means of investigating the sequences and structures of this class of polypeptides.
短杆菌肽是一大类具有相当序列同源性，但具有不同生物学特性和三维结构的膜活性肽。它们构成了丰富的天然“突变体”资源，对离子通道的结构/功能研究具有潜在价值。已在http://www.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/peptaibol创建了一个可搜索的短杆菌肽序列和结构在线数据库，作为生物学和结构学界的资源。本文讨论了该网站的内容和组织，以及向数据库提交新条目的程序。目前，数据库中存储了300多个短杆菌肽序列。每个序列条目都包含其完整的文献引用及其生物学来源信息。提供了用于搜索特定短杆菌肽序列或序列分组，以及定位包含特定序列基序的短杆菌肽的工具。此外，该网站还充当结构信息数据库。目前所有可用的短杆菌肽X射线和核磁共振结构的坐标都已纳入，并在适当情况下辅以分子图形插图。这些包括模型通道结构的图形以及不同短杆菌肽结构之间的比较。因此，短杆菌肽数据库提供了一个方便获取信息的工具，以及一种研究此类多肽序列和结构的手段。
