Chapter 4 - Database resources for cyanobacterial research

Abstract

Cyanobacteria are a group of photosynthetic bacteria consisting of over 1600 species with various species-specific characteristics such as cell movement, cell differentiation, and nitrogen fixation. These species live in a wide range of ecological habitats, including extreme cold, extremely hot, marine, freshwater, and terrestrial, with symbiotic associations with other living organisms. This oxygen-releasing Gram-negative bacterium is an attractive model organism for exploring the mechanism of carbon fixation as well as endosymbiotic theory as these are considered as the origin of the chloroplast. Since these ancient life forms play a significant role in the ecological system, they serve as a study material in diverse fields of life science research. Cyanobacteria form toxic water blooms, which are of vital ecological concerns. However, in recent times, these organisms have got the attention of the researchers around the globe because of their capability of producing bioactive natural products as secondary metabolites, which have considerable economic and medicinal importance. Available cyanobacterial genomes are useful for studying the metabolic organization of the cyanobacterial species in diverse environments. Several database resources that contain the genomic and proteomic information of sequenced cyanobacterial genomes along with tools for sequence analysis have been developed by the researchers worldwide. This chapter discusses these databases dedicated to cyanobacteria in detail which play an essential role in cyanobacterial research in recent times.