/QSDB

Quorum sensing gene database for archaea and bacteria

Quorum sensing gene database for archaea and bacteria, with a focus on microbes related to environmental engineering. The database is published in Du et al, 2020

Introduction

Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell-cell communication process used by microbes to control and coordinate the behavior of the population. QS has long been studied, and in recent years environmental engineers started to realize that QS could play an important role in environmental engineering. For example, QS is involved in biofilms formation, denitrification, sludge granularization, and membrane fouling.

Microbiology studies have accumulated great knowledge about how QS works at the molecular level. However, previous studies are mostly in model microorganisms, while the environmental microbiomes are highly complex. To better understand QS in environmental microbiomes we need a good QS gene reference database.

Methodology

QSDB is an integration of curated literatures and current database. We collected reported QS genes that are relevant to environmental functions from literatures, and then integrated with the genes from KEGG Quorum Sensing pathway. The sequence of each genes, as well as their original species, were parsed and then redundancy is removed. The resultant database therefore can serve as useful reference for metagenomic studies.

Download

You can simply download the data file that you need from the directory. You can also clone the whole repository by

git clone https://github.com/qhmu/QSDB

This will download all the folders and files, including the scripts.

Contact

Your comments and input are highly welcomed! For any technical issues or questions please contact laomunker@gmail.com.

Citation

If you have used the QSDB database in your research, please cite our publication:

Du, Q., Mu, Q., & Wu, G. (2021). Metagenomic and bioanalytical insights into quorum sensing of methanogens in anaerobic digestion systems with or without the addition of conductive filter. Science of the Total Environment, 763, 144509. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144509