Proteome database of Bacillus thuringiensis

Bacillus thuringiensis is a common soil-dwelling Gram-positive bacterium that sporulates. A pathogen for some insects due to the formation of crystal proteins known as δ-endotoxin, the bacterium has been a model organism for investigating natural pesticides. Besides soils, the bacterium also naturally inhabits a variety of surfaces such as those of different plants, in the gut of insects as well as in the aquatic environment. This work provides fundamental proteomic information about B. thuringiensis that could serve a variety of basic microbiological and biotechnological studies. Specifically, the UniProt proteome file of the organism was parsed by an in-house MATLAB proteome analysis software that results in the construction of a proteome database comprising protein name, amino acid sequence, number of residues, molecular weight and nucleotide sequence of proteins. Such information is critical for guiding many aspects of modern molecular cloning and protein analysis workflows pertinent to deciphering the molecular mechanisms that underlie the formation of crystal proteins as well as the biopesticidal effect of this bacterium.