PvaxDB: a comprehensive structural repository of Plasmodium vivax proteome

The severity of malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax worldwide and its resistance against the available general antimalarial drugs has created an urgent need for a comprehensive insight into its biology and biochemistry for developing some novel potential vaccines and therapeutics. P.vivax comprises 5392 proteins mostly predicted, out of which 4211 are soluble proteins and 2205 of these belong to blood and liver stages of malarial cycle. Presently available public resources report functional annotation (gene ontology) of only 28% (627 proteins) of the enzymatic soluble proteins and experimental structures are determined for only 42 proteins P. vivax proteome. In this milieu of severe paucity of structural and functional data, we have generated structures of 2205 soluble proteins, validated them thoroughly, identified their binding pockets (including active sites) and annotated their function increasing the coverage from the existing 28% to 100%. We have pooled all this information together and created a database christened as PvaxDB, which furnishes extensive sequence, structure, ligand binding site and functional information. We believe PvaxDB could be helpful in identifying novel protein drug targets, expediting development of new drugs to combat malaria. This is also the first attempt to create a reliable comprehensive computational structural repository of all the soluble proteins of P. vivax. Database URL: http://www.scfbio-iitd.res.in/PvaxDB