CBMDB: A Database for Accessing, Analyzing, and Mining CBM Information

Abstract

Carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs) are important substrate-binding domains that are mainly contained within carbohydrate-active enzymes. To elucidate the mechanism of enzyme-carbohydrate recognition and to promote the process of enzymatic engineering, it is important to explore more potential CBMs. However, the information and analytic tools of CBMs provided by current databases are limited. Here, a simple, user-friendly, and comprehensive CBM database (CBMDB) that integrates multidimensional information and analysis tools was constructed. Based on a data query function and analysis tools provided by the CBMDB, including sequence similarity searches, pairwise alignment, multiple sequence alignment, structure similarity searches, and phylogenetic visualization, information retrieval and analysis of known CBMs could be easily performed. Notably, unknown proteins with potential CBM functions could also be examined based on existing CBM data.