GlycoPathDB: A database of monosaccharide biosynthesis pathways

Abstract

A distinctive feature of glycans vis-a-vis proteins and nucleic acids is its structural complexity which arises from the huge repertoire of monosaccharides, isomeric linkages and branching. Around 70 monosaccharides have so far been discovered in natural glycans and the pathway for the biosynthesis of 57 of these have been experimentally characterized. However, there is no common platform with a comprehensive information of monosaccharide pathways and enzymes. We have gathered 542 experimentally characterized enzymes of these pathways from literature and set up a first of its kind database called GlycoPathDB (http://www.bio.iitb.ac.in/glycopathdb/). Annotations such as the reaction catalysed, substrate specificity, biosynthesis pathway and PubMed IDs are provided for all the enzymes in the database. Sequence homologs of the experimentally characterized enzymes found in nearly 13,000 completely sequenced genomes from Bacteria and Archaea have also been included in the database. This platform will help in deduction of evolutionary relationships among enzymes such as aminotransferases, nucleotidyltransferases, acetyltransferases and SDR family enzymes. It can also facilitate experimental studies such as direct enzyme assays to validate putative annotations, establish structure-function relationship, expression profiling to determine the function, determine the phenotypic consequences of gene knock-out/knock-in and complementation studies.