VFDB 2012 update: toward the genetic diversity and molecular evolution of bacterial virulence factors

TLDR

VFDB has been a comprehensive repository of bacterial virulence factors for over seven years, and the field’s rapid growth in genome sequencing and manipulation technologies has highlighted the complexity of virulence mechanisms and the need to better understand the “language” of VFs. The article updates VFDB to summarize key virulence mechanisms by comparing VF compositions across pathogens, identifying core components and phylogenetic clades, and illuminating evolutionary forces shaping bacterial pathogenesis. The update achieves this by comparing VF compositions and organizations across pathogens, identifying core components and phylogenetic clades. The 2012 release also offers an improved user interface.

Abstract

The virulence factor database (VFDB, http://www.mgc.ac.cn/VFs/) has served as a comprehensive repository of bacterial virulence factors (VFs) for >7 years. Bacterial virulence is an exciting and dynamic field, due to the availability of complete sequences of bacterial genomes and increasing sophisticated technologies for manipulating bacteria and bacterial genomes. The intricacy of virulence mechanisms offers a challenge, and there exists a clear need to decipher the 'language' used by VFs more effectively. In this article, we present the recent major updates of VFDB in an attempt to summarize some of the most important virulence mechanisms by comparing different compositions and organizations of VFs from various bacterial pathogens, identifying core components and phylogenetic clades and shedding new light on the forces that shape the evolutionary history of bacterial pathogenesis. In addition, the 2012 release of VFDB provides an improved user interface.