TCDB: the Transporter Classification Database for membrane transport protein analyses and information

The Transporter Classification Database ( TCDB) is a web accessible, curated, relational database containing sequence, classification, structural, functional and evolutionary information about transport systems from a variety of living organisms. TCDB is a curated repository for factual information compiled from > 10 000 references, encompassing similar to 3000 representative transporters and putative transporters, classified into > 400 families. The transporter classification (TC) system is an International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology approved system of nomenclature for transport protein classification. TCDB is freely accessible at http://www.tcdb.org. The web interface provides several different methods for accessing the data, including step-by-step access to hierarchical classification, direct search by sequence or TC number and full-text searching. The functional ontology that underlies the database structure facilitates powerful query searches that yield valuable data in a quick and easy way. The TCDB web-site also offers several tools specifically designed for analyzing the unique characteristics of transport proteins. TCDB not only provides curated information and a tool for classifying newly identified membrane proteins, but also serves as a genome transporter-annotation tool.