The University of Minnesota Biocatalysis/Biodegradation Database: emphasizing enzymes

The University of Minnesota Biocatalysis/Biodegradation Database (UM-BBD, h ttp://umbbd.ahc.umn.edu/) provides curated information on microbial catabol ic enzymes and their organization into metabolic pathways. Currently, it co ntains information on over 400 enzymes. In the last year the enzyme page wa s enhanced to contain more internal and external links; it also displays th e different metabolic pathways in which each enzyme participates. in collab oration with the Nomenclature Commission of the international Union of Bioc hemistry and Molecular Biology, 35 UM-BBD enzymes were assigned complete EC codes during 2000, Bacterial oxygenases are heavily represented in the UM- BBD; they are known to have broad substrate specificity. A compilation of k nown reactions of naphthalene and toluene dioxygenases were recently added to the UM-BBD; 73 and 108 were listed respectively. in 2000 the UM-BBD is m irrored by two prestigious groups: the European Bioinformatics Institute an d KEGG (the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes). Collaborations with o ther groups are being developed. The increased emphasis on UM-BBD enzymes i s important for predicting novel metabolic pathways that might exist in nat ure or could be engineered. It also is important for current efforts in mic robial genome annotation.