PlantPepDB: A manually curated plant peptide database.

Area of Science:

• Plant science
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Plants produce peptides as part of their innate defense against pathogens.
• There is a growing interest in the therapeutic applications of plant-derived peptides (phyto-peptides).
• A need exists for centralized, reliable databases of phyto-peptide information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop PlantPepDB, a manually curated database of plant-derived peptides.
• To provide a comprehensive resource for researchers studying phyto-peptides.
• To facilitate the exploration of therapeutic potential of plant peptides.

Main Methods:

• Manual curation of published literature and existing databases.
• Data compilation of 3848 plant-derived peptides, including experimental validation (protein and transcript levels), predictions, and homology inferences.
• Integration of physicochemical properties and tertiary structure data.

Main Results:

• PlantPepDB contains 3848 plant-derived peptides: 2821 experimentally validated at the protein level, 458 at the transcript level, 530 predicted, and 39 inferred from homology.
• The database includes physicochemical properties and tertiary structure information to aid therapeutic potential studies.
• Discovery that many phyto-peptides exhibit multiple properties upon detailed curation.

Conclusions:

• PlantPepDB is the first comprehensive database for phyto-peptides, offering detailed analysis and broad functional information.
• The database serves as a powerful resource for peptide-based applied research and therapeutic discovery.
• PlantPepDB is freely accessible online for the scientific community.