GlycoMapsDB: a database of the accessible conformational space of glycosidic linkages.

Conformational energy maps of the glycosidic linkages are a valuable resource to gain information about preferred conformations and flexibility of carbohydrates. Here we present GlycoMapsDB, a new database containing more than 2500 calculated conformational maps for a variety of di- to pentasaccharide fragments contained in N- and O-glycans. Oligosaccharides representing branchpoints of N-glycans are included in the set of fragments, thus the influence of neighbouring residues is reflected in the conformational maps. During refinement of new crystal structures, maps contained in GlycoMapsDB can serve as a valuable resource to check whether the torsion values of a glycosidic linkage are located in an 'allowed' region similar to the Ramachandran plot analysis for proteins. This might help to improve the structural quality of the glycan data contained in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). A link between GlycoMapsDB and the PDB has been established so that the glycosidic torsions of all glycans contained in the PDB can be retrieved and compared to calculated data. The service is available at www.glycosciences.de/modeling/glycomapsdb/.

LOX-DB-- database on lipoxygenases.

SUMMARY: Lipoxygenases are a family of enzymes involved in a variety of human diseases like inflammation, asthma, artherosclerosis and cancer. The lipoxygenases database (LOX-DB) aims to be a web accessible compendium of information in particular on the mammalian members of this multigene family. This resource includes molecular structures, reference data, tools for structural and computational analysis as well as links to related information maintained by others. The data can be retrieved by the use of various search options and analyzed applying publicly available visualization tools. AVAILABILITY: LOX-DB is available at http://www.dkfz-heidelberg.de/spec/lox-db/