Secondary motif databases

Databases are electronic filing cabinets that serve as a convenient and efficient means of storing vast amounts of information. An important distinction exists between primary (archival) and secondary (curated) databases. The primary databases represent experimental results with some interpretation. Their record is the sequence as it was experimentally derived. The DNA, RNA, or protein sequences are the items to be computed on and worked with as the valuable components of the primary databases. The secondary databases contain the fruits of analyses of the sequences in the primary sources such as patterns, motifs, functional sites, and so on. Most biochemical and/or molecular biology databases in the public domains are flat-file databases. Each entry of a database is given a unique identifier (i.e., an entry name and/or accession number) so that it can be retrieved uniformly by the combination of the database name and the identifier. 

Reliable secondary structures can enhance the prediction of higher order protein structure, and to a limited extent, secondary-structure motifs can even suggest specific fold structures. Sometimes these secondary structures provide insight into function. Definition of Secondary Structure of Proteins (DSSP), Integrated Sequence-Structure Database (ISSD), Protein Secondary Structure Database (PSSD), and CATH are covered in this section (see Table 2.2). 

The final method of RNA structure prediction, empirical algorithms, are also analogous to primary-structure motif detection methods. Known RNA structural motifs are extracted from structural databases, and the primary-structure patterns underlying these motifs are identified. Novel RNA sequences are then scanned for these primary-structure motifs much like a novel protein sequence might be scanned for CDs. In essence, these methods search the primary structure of sequences for conserved motifs that indicate secondary structure. One of the most flexible and powerful empirical tools is RNAMotif, which is freely available for download, but does not have an associated web-server (23). 

There are different classes of protein sequence databases. Primary and secondary databases are used to address different aspects of sequence analysis. Composite databases amalgamate a variety of different primary sources to facilitate sequence searching efficiently. The primary structure (amino acid sequence) of a protein is stored in primary databases as linear alphabets that represent the constituent residues. The secondary structure of a protein corresponding to region of local regularity (e.g., a-helices, /1-strands, and turns), which in sequence alignments are often apparent as conserved motifs, is stored in secondary databases as patterns. The tertiary structure of a protein derived from the packing of its secondary structural elements which may form folds and domains is stored in structure databases as sets of atomic coordinates. Some of the most important protein sequence databases are PIR (Protein Information Resource), SWISS-PROT (at EBI and ExPASy), MIPS (Munich Information Center for Protein Sequences), JIPID (Japanese International Protein Sequence Database), and TrEMBL (at EBI). ... 

Protein-pattern databases cover both motifs or functional domains and secondary structure. We have included the entire InterPro family of databases, as well as BLOCKS, CDD, and a description of patterns found in Swiss-Prot sequences. DSSP, ISSD, PSSD, and CATH are covered in the secondary-structure section. 

The secondary databases contain the fruits of analyses of the sequences or structures in the primary sources such as patterns, motifs, functional sites and so on. Many databases known as boutique (specialized) databases select, annotate and recombine data focused on particular topics, and include hnks affording streamlined access to information about subjects of interest. 

The DNA secondary databases offer analytical results (e.g. gene motifs, splice sties, transcription regulators) derived form the primary databases of INSDC, some of which are listed in Table 15.8. 

Secondary protein structural databases (structural motifs and classifications) ... 

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