SEARCHGTr: a program for analysis of glycosyltransferases involved in glycosylation of secondary metabolites

SEARCHGTr is a web-based software for the analysis of glycosyltransferases (GTrs) involved in the biosynthesis of a variety of pharmaceutically important compounds like adriamycin, erythromycin, vancomycin etc. This software has been developed based on a comprehensive analysis of sequence/ structural features of 102 GTrs of known specificity from 52 natural product biosynthetic gene clusters. SEARCHGTr is a powerful tool that correlates sequences of GTrs to the chemical structures of their corresponding substrates. This software indicates the donor/ acceptor specificity and also identifies putative substrate binding residues. In addition, it provides interfaces to other public databases like GENBANK, SWISS- PROT, CAZY, PDB, PDBSum and PUBMED for extracting various information on GTrs homologous to the query sequence. SEARCHGTr would provide new dimension to our previously developed bioinformatics tool NRPS-PKS. Together, these tools facilitate comprehensive computational analysis of proteins involved in biosynthesis of aglycone core and its downstream glycosylations. Apart from presenting opportunities for rational design of novel natural products, these tools would assist in the identification of biosynthetic products of secondary metabolite gene clusters found in newly sequenced genomes. SEARCHGTr can be accessed at http:// www.nii.res.in/searchgtr.html.