Yang Jian, Chen Lihong, Sun Lilian, Yu Jun, Jin Qi
State Key Laboratory for Molecular Virology and Genetic Engineering, National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100176, China.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2008 Jan;36(Database issue):D539-42. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkm951. Epub 2007 Nov 4.
Virulence factor database (VFDB) was set up in 2004 dedicated for providing current knowledge of virulence factors (VFs) from various medical significant bacterial pathogens to facilitate pathogenomic research. Nowadays, complete genome sequences of almost all the major pathogenic microbes have been determined, which makes comparative genomics a powerful approach for uncovering novel virulence determinants and hidden aspects of pathogenesis. VFDB was therefore upgraded to present the enormous diversity of bacterial genomes in terms of virulence genes and their organization. The VFDB 2008 release includes the following new features; (i) detailed tabular comparison of virulence composition of a given genome with other genomes of the same genus, (ii) multiple alignments and statistical analysis of homologous VFs and (iii) graphical comparison of genomic organizations of virulence genes. Comparative analysis of the numerous VFs will improve our understanding of the nature and evolution of virulence, as well as the development of new therapeutic and preventive strategies. VFDB 2008 release offers more user-friendly tools for comparative pathogenomics and it is publicly accessible at http://www.mgc.ac.cn/VFs/.
毒力因子数据库（VFDB）于2004年建立，致力于提供各种具有医学意义的细菌病原体的毒力因子（VFs）的现有知识，以促进病原体组学研究。如今，几乎所有主要致病微生物的完整基因组序列都已确定，这使得比较基因组学成为揭示新的毒力决定因素和发病机制隐藏方面的有力方法。因此，VFDB进行了升级，以展示细菌基因组在毒力基因及其组织方面的巨大多样性。VFDB 2008版本具有以下新功能：（i）将给定基因组的毒力组成与同一属的其他基因组进行详细的表格比较，（ii）对同源毒力因子进行多序列比对和统计分析，以及（iii）对毒力基因的基因组组织进行图形比较。对众多毒力因子的比较分析将增进我们对毒力的性质和进化的理解，以及新治疗和预防策略的开发。VFDB 2008版本为比较病原体组学提供了更用户友好的工具，可通过http://www.mgc.ac.cn/VFs/公开访问。
