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Updated: May 21, 2026
06:51
High-throughput Screening of Carbohydrate-degrading Enzymes Using Novel Insoluble Chromogenic Substrate Assay Kits
Published on: September 20, 2016
dbCAN: a web resource for automated carbohydrate-active enzyme annotation.
Yanbin Yin1, Xizeng Mao, Jincai Yang
1Computational System Biology Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Institute of Bioinformatics, BioEnergy Science Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
Nucleic Acids Research
|May 31, 2012
Summary
Carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) are crucial for biotechnology and biofuels. A new web resource, dbCAN, offers automated annotation of these enzymes using signature domains and HMMs.
Area of Science:
- Biotechnology
- Enzymology
- Bioinformatics
Background:
- Carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) play vital roles in biological processes.
- Their significance is particularly pronounced in the burgeoning biofuel industry.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop an automated web resource for CAZyme annotation.
- To facilitate the analysis of protein datasets for CAZyme identification.
Main Methods:
- Defined CAZyme signature domains using Conserved Domain Database (CDD) searches and literature.
- Constructed Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) for each CAZyme family.
- Developed the dbCAN web resource for automated annotation.
Main Results:
- Successfully created a comprehensive set of CAZyme family-specific HMMs.
- Established a functional web server (dbCAN) for protein annotation.
- Enabled automated signature domain-based annotation for protein datasets.
Conclusions:
- The dbCAN resource provides a robust platform for CAZyme identification.
- HMM-based annotation is a reliable method for discovering CAZymes.
- This tool supports research in biotechnology and biofuel development.
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