Systematic analysis of snake neurotoxins' functional classification using a data warehousing approach

  • Authors:

  • Joyce Phui Yee Siew;Asif M. Khan;Paul T. J. Tan;Judice L. Y. Koh;Seng Hong Seah;Chuay Yeng Koo;Siaw Ching Chai;Arunmozhiarasi Armugam;Vladimir Brusic;Kandiah Jeyaseelan

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 8 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597;Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 8 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597;Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 8 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597;Institute for Infocomm Research, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119613;Institute for Infocomm Research, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119613;Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 8 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597;Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 8 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597;Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 8 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597;Institute for Infocomm Research, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119613;Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 8 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597

  • Venue:
  • Bioinformatics
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

Motivation: Sequence annotations, functional and structural data on snake venom neurotoxins (svNTXs) are scattered across multiple databases and literature sources. Sequence annotations and structural data are available in the public molecular databases, while functional data are almost exclusively available in the published articles. There is a need for a specialized svNTXs database that contains NTX entries, which are organized, well annotated and classified in a systematic manner. Results: We have systematically analyzed svNTXs and classified them using structure--function groups based on their structural, functional and phylogenetic properties. Using conserved motifs in each phylogenetic group, we built an intelligent module for the prediction of structural and functional properties of unknown NTXs. We also developed an annotation tool to aid the functional prediction of newly identified NTXs as an additional resource for the venom research community. Availability: We created a searchable online database of NTX proteins sequences (http://research.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/Templar/DB/snake_neurotoxin). This database can also be found under Swiss-Prot Toxin Annotation Project website (http://www.expasy.org/sprot/)