SENTRA, a database of signal transduction proteins

SENTRA, available via URL http://wit.mcs.anl.gov/WIT2/Sentra/ , is a database of proteins associated with microbial signal transduction. The database currently includes the classical two-component signal transduction pathway proteins and methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins, but will be expanded to also include other classes of signal transduction systems that are modulated by phosphorylation or methylation reactions. Although the majority of database entries are from prokaryotic systems, eukaroytic proteins with bacterial-like signal transduction domains are also included. Currently SENTRA contains signal transduction proteins in 34 complete and almost completely sequenced prokaryotic genomes, as well as sequences from 243 organisms available in public databases (SWISS-PROT and EMBL). The analysis was carried out within the framework of the WIT2 system, which is designed and implemented to support genetic sequence analysis and comparative analysis of sequenced genomes.