Proteome database of Bacillus subtilis 168

Bacillus subtilis strain 168 is a commensal bacterium in the human gastrointestinal tract, and is also a common environmental microorganism. Gram-positive and facultative anaerobic, B. subtilis also possess multiple differentiation pathways, which marks it as a model organism useful for understanding the fundamental processes that guide prokaryotic cellular differentiation. Specifically, B. subtilis is capable of differentiating into cannibalistic or competence mode, as well as enter into biofilm formation or sporulation pathways. All these speaks of a versatile metabolism as well as an intricate environmental sensing and signalling system. This work sought to provide the fundamental basis for understanding cellular physiology and genetics of this fascinating bacterium through determining the proteome database of B. subtilis 168 at the global level. Comprising protein name, function, amino acid sequence, the database also sports number of amino acid residues, protein molecular weight as well as corresponding nucleotide sequence of the protein through calculations done by an in-house MATLAB software. Overall, the database should find use in both fundamental and applied biology research aiming, for example, to annotate mass peaks from a whole-cell mass spectrum analysis of the bacterium, or for use in determining the molecular weight distribution of proteins in this bacterium.