MIBiG 3.0: a community-driven effort to annotate experimentally validated biosynthetic gene clusters

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Bioinformatics
• Natural Products Chemistry

Background:

• The increasing volume of genomic data necessitates efficient methods for identifying natural product biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs).
• The Minimum Information about a Biosynthetic Gene cluster (MIBiG) standard and database were established to facilitate BGC characterization and discovery.
• MIBiG 2.0, released in 2019, contained 2021 entries and served as a key community resource.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the MIBiG 3.0 database update, focusing on large-scale validation, re-annotation, and the addition of new entries.
• To enhance the annotation of compound structures, biological activities, and protein domain selectivities within BGCs.
• To provide an up-to-date, freely accessible resource for the scientific community, supporting natural product discovery and machine learning applications.

Main Methods:

• Large-scale validation and re-annotation of existing entries in the MIBiG database.
• Inclusion of 661 new biosynthetic gene cluster entries.
• Detailed annotation of compound structures, biological activities, and protein domain selectivities.

Main Results:

• MIBiG 3.0 features a significantly updated and validated collection of BGCs.
• Enhanced annotation provides richer information on compound properties and functionalities.
• The database is now more comprehensive and suitable for advanced computational analyses.

Conclusions:

• MIBiG 3.0 represents a substantial advancement in the MIBiG resource, offering improved data quality and scope.
• The updated database facilitates the discovery of novel natural products and the development of predictive models for sequence-structure-function relationships.
• MIBiG 3.0 is readily available online, promoting further research in natural product biosynthesis and drug discovery.