WDSPdb: A database for WD40-repeat proteins

Abstract

WD40-repeat proteins, as one of the largest protein families, often serve as platforms to assemble functional complexes through the hotspot residues on their domain surfaces, and thus play vital roles in many biological processes. Consequently, it is highly required for researchers who study WD40 proteins and protein-protein interactions to obtain structural information of WD40 domains. Systematic identification of WD40-repeat proteins, including prediction of their secondary structures, tertiary structures and potential hotspot residues responsible for protein-protein interactions, may constitute a valuable resource upon this request. To achieve this goal, we developed a specialized database WDSPdb (http://wu. scbb.pkusz.edu.cn/wdsp/) to provide these details of WD40-repeat proteins based on our recently published method WDSP. The WDSPdb contains 63 211 WD40-repeat proteins identified from 3383 species, including most well-known model organisms. To better serve the community, we implemented a userfriendly interactive web interface to browse, search and download the secondary structures, 3D structure models and potential hotspot residues provided by WDSPdb.