Modèles bio-informatiques pour les peptides non-ribosomiques et leurs synthétases. (Computational biology for nonribosomal peptides and their synthetases)

Norine is the first database entirely dedicatedto nonribosomal peptides (NRPs). In bacteriaand fungi, in addition to the traditional ribosomalproteic biosynthesis, an alternative ribosome-independent pathway called NRP synthesis allowspeptide production. It is performed by huge proteincomplexes called nonribosomal peptide synthe-tases (NRPSs). The molecules synthesized byNRPS contain a high proportion of nonproteogenicamino acids. The primary structure of these pep-tides is not always linear but often more complexand may contain cycles and branchings. In recentyears, NRPs attracted a lot of attention because oftheir biological activities and pharmacological prop-erties (antibiotic, immunosuppressor, antitumor,etc.). However, few computational resources andtools dedicated to those peptides have been avail-able so far. Norine is focused on NRPs and containsmore than 700 entries. The database is freelyaccessible at http://bioinfo.lifl.fr/norine/. It providesa complete computational tool for systematic studyof NRPs in numerous species, and as such, shouldpermit to obtain a better knowledge of thesemetabolic products and underlying biologicalmechanisms, and ultimately to contribute to theredesigning of natural products in order to obtainnew bioactive compounds for drug discovery.