Introduction to dbAPIS

dbAPIS serves as a comprehensive data repository for experimentally validated viral anti-prokaryotic immune system (APIS) proteins and their associated protein families. APIS proteins, typically encoded by phages, prophages, and other mobile genetic elements like plasmids, play a key role in inhibiting prokaryotic immune or defense mechanisms. Notably, our database does not include anti-CRISPR proteins due to their extensive coverage in existing databases such as Anti-CRISPRdb, AcrDB , CRISPRminer, AcrCatalog , etc.

The key features of dbAPIS include:

dbAPIS aims to routinely curate literature and collect all experimentally characterized APIS genes, and to facilitate the research in phage anti-prokaryotic immune mechanisms and aid in the discovery of novel APIS proteins by providing a comprehensive web resource.

dbAPIS will be updated once a year to include new experimentally validated APIS genes from literature curation.

11/19/2024: The new release contians 43 newly verified seeds and generated 5605 homologs. 27 of them are assigned to previous families. The new clustering generates 107 new families (members >=3). DbAPIS now includes 84 verified seeds and 199 APIS families, with a total of ~ 9,900 sequence homologs. The previous clan classification was discarded, all families were re-classified into 73 new clans.

6/1/2023: The first release of dbAPIS with 41 experimentally characterized APIS proteins and generated 92 APIS families.