Zeitschrift für Informatik und Systembiologie

VMD: Viral Microsatellite Database-A Comprehensive Resource for all Viral Microsatellites

Abstract

Suresh B Mudunuri, Allam Appa Rao, S Pallamsetty, Priyatosh Mishra and H A Nagarajaram

Microsatellites are the small DNA sequences with a tandem repetition of a particular motif of size 1-6. Microsatellites are found in all known genomes and play a significant role in many fields including DNA Fingerprinting, Population Studies, Forensics, Paternity Studies, Gene Regulation, Genetic Disorder Studies, and Evolution of Genomes. They are extensively used as genetic markers for identifying pathogenic bacteria and viruses. More over, they are found to be associated with the plasticity, adaptation and virulence of bacteria and viruses. Insilico analysis of microsatellites in various viruses would reveal many interesting facts about their evolution and adaptation. To the best of our knowledge, there is no comprehensive and exclusive database of all viral microsatellites that extracts all types of microsatellites with flexible extraction options. In this paper, we describe the details of a relational database named Viral Microsatellite Database (VMD). VMD currently hosts microsatellites of around 3500 viral genomes along with their alignments, locus information, imperfection info, protein info etc. The database can be accessed and downloaded for free for academic / research purposes from http://www.mcr.org.in/vmd.