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. 2009 Jan;37(Database issue):D233-8.
doi: 10.1093/nar/gkn663. Epub 2008 Oct 5.

The Carbohydrate-Active EnZymes database (CAZy): an expert resource for Glycogenomics

Brandi L Cantarel  1 , Pedro M Coutinho, Corinne Rancurel, Thomas Bernard, Vincent Lombard, Bernard Henrissat
Affiliations

The Carbohydrate-Active EnZymes database (CAZy): an expert resource for Glycogenomics

Brandi L Cantarel et al. Nucleic Acids Res. 2009 Jan.

Abstract

The Carbohydrate-Active Enzyme (CAZy) database is a knowledge-based resource specialized in the enzymes that build and breakdown complex carbohydrates and glycoconjugates. As of September 2008, the database describes the present knowledge on 113 glycoside hydrolase, 91 glycosyltransferase, 19 polysaccharide lyase, 15 carbohydrate esterase and 52 carbohydrate-binding module families. These families are created based on experimentally characterized proteins and are populated by sequences from public databases with significant similarity. Protein biochemical information is continuously curated based on the available literature and structural information. Over 6400 proteins have assigned EC numbers and 700 proteins have a PDB structure. The classification (i) reflects the structural features of these enzymes better than their sole substrate specificity, (ii) helps to reveal the evolutionary relationships between these enzymes and (iii) provides a convenient framework to understand mechanistic properties. This resource has been available for over 10 years to the scientific community, contributing to information dissemination and providing a transversal nomenclature to glycobiologists. More recently, this resource has been used to improve the quality of functional predictions of a number genome projects by providing expert annotation. The CAZy resource resides at URL: http://www.cazy.org/.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Examples of modular carbohydrate-active enzymes. (a) Cellobiohydrolase I from Hypocrea jecorina (SP P00725); (b) alginate lyase from Sphingomonas sp. A1 (GB BAB03312.1); (c) xylanase from Cellulomonas fimi (GB CAA54145.1); (d) xylanase D/lichenase from Ruminococcus flavefaciens (GB CAB51934.1); (e) chitin synthase from Emericella nidulans (GB BAA21714.1); (f) cyclicβ-1-3-glucan synthase from Bradyrhizobium japonicum (GB AAC62210.1).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
(A) Once a search is performed, such as for a protein accession (P00275), the resulting page indicates the modular families that compose that protein. (B) Upon clicking the resulting links provided in A, users are directed to a page about the family and gives a listing of all annotated members.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
The number of protein containing CAZy modules were noted in December of the years 1999–2007. Within this set (Open circle), the number of enzymatically characterized proteins (triangle) and those with solved structures (open diamond) were also counted. In December 2007,
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