CancerPPD (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/cancerppd/) is a repository of experimentally verified anticancer peptides (ACPs) and anticancer proteins. Data were manually collected from published research articles, patents and from other databases. The current release of CancerPPD consists of 3491 ACP and 121 anticancer protein entries. Each entry provides comprehensive information related to a peptide like its source of origin, nature of the peptide, anticancer activity, N- and C-terminal modifications, conformation, etc. Additionally, CancerPPD provides the information of around 249 types of cancer cell lines and 16 different assays used for testing the ACPs. In addition to natural peptides, CancerPPD contains peptides having non-natural, chemically modified residues and D-amino acids. Besides this primary information, CancerPPD stores predicted tertiary structures as well as peptide sequences in SMILES format. Tertiary structures of peptides were predicted using the state-of-art method, PEPstr and secondary structural states were assigned using DSSP. In order to assist users, a number of web-based tools have been integrated, these include keyword search, data browsing, sequence and structural similarity search. We believe that CancerPPD will be very useful in designing peptide-based anticancer therapeutics.

Numerous therapeutic peptides do not enter the clinical trials just because of their high hemolytic activity. Recently, we developed a database, Hemolytik, for maintaining experimentally validated hemolytic and non-hemolytic peptides. The present study describes a web server and mobile app developed for predicting, and screening of peptides having hemolytic potency. Firstly, we generated a dataset HemoPI-1 that contains 552 hemolytic peptides extracted from Hemolytik database and 552 random non-hemolytic peptides (from Swiss-Prot). The sequence analysis of these peptides revealed that certain residues (e.g., L, K, F, W) and motifs (e.g., “FKK”, “LKL”, “KKLL”, “KWK”, “VLK”, “CYCR”, “CRR”, “RFC”, “RRR”, “LKKL”) are more abundant in hemolytic peptides. Therefore, we developed models for discriminating hemolytic and non-hemolytic peptides using various machine learning techniques and achieved more than 95% accuracy. We also developed models for discriminating peptides having high and low hemolytic potential on different datasets called HemoPI-2 and HemoPI-3. In order to serve the scientific community, we developed a web server, mobile app and JAVA-based standalone software (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/hemopi/).

SATPdb (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/satpdb/) is a database of structurally annotated therapeutic peptides, curated from 22 public domain peptide databases/datasets including 9 of our own. The current version holds 19192 unique experimentally validated therapeutic peptide sequences having length between 2 and 50 amino acids. It covers peptides having natural, non-natural and modified residues. These peptides were systematically grouped into 10 categories based on their major function or therapeutic property like 1099 anticancer, 10585 antimicrobial, 1642 drug delivery and 1698 antihypertensive peptides. We assigned or annotated structure of these therapeutic peptides using structural databases (Protein Data Bank) and state-of-the-art structure prediction methods like I-TASSER, HHsearch and PEPstrMOD. In addition, SATPdb facilitates users in performing various tasks that include: (i) structure and sequence similarity search, (ii) peptide browsing based on their function and properties, (iii) identification of moonlighting peptides and (iv) searching of peptides having desired structure and therapeutic activities. We hope this database will be useful for researchers working in the field of peptide-based therapeutics.

Short half-life is one of the key challenges in the field of therapeutic peptides. Various studies have reported enhancement in the stability of peptides using methods like chemical modifications, D-amino acid substitution, cyclization, replacement of labile aminos acids, etc. In order to study this scattered data, there is a pressing need for a repository dedicated to the half-life of peptides. To fill this lacuna, we have developed PEPlife (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/peplife), a manually curated resource of experimentally determined half-life of peptides. PEPlife contains 2229 entries covering 1193 unique peptides. Each entry provides detailed information of the peptide, like its name, sequence, half-life, modifications, the experimental assay for determining half-life, biological nature and activity of the peptide. We also maintain SMILES and structures of peptides. We have incorporated web-based modules to offer user-friendly data searching and browsing in the database. PEPlife integrates numerous tools to perform various types of analysis such as BLAST, Smith-Waterman algorithm, GGSEARCH, Jalview and MUSTANG. PEPlife would augment the understanding of different factors that affect the half-life of peptides like modifications, sequence, length, route of delivery of the peptide, etc. We anticipate that PEPlife will be useful for the researchers working in the area of peptide-based therapeutics.

Hemolytik (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/hemolytik/) is a manually curated database of experimentally determined hemolytic and non-hemolytic peptides. Data were compiled from a large number of published research articles and various databases like Antimicrobial Peptide Database, Collection of Anti-microbial Peptides, Dragon Antimicrobial Peptide Database and Swiss-Prot. The current release of Hemolytik database contains ∼3000 entries that include ∼2000 unique peptides whose hemolytic activities were evaluated on erythrocytes isolated from as many as 17 different sources. Each entry in Hemolytik provides comprehensive information about a peptide, like its name, sequence, origin, reported function, property such as chirality, types (linear and cyclic), end modifications as well as details pertaining to its hemolytic activity. In addition, tertiary structure of each peptide has been predicted, and secondary structure states have been assigned. To facilitate the scientific community, a user-friendly interface has been developed with various tools for data searching and analysis. We hope, Hemolytik will be useful for researchers working in the field of designing therapeutic peptides.

This paper describes a web server developed for designing therapeutic peptides with desired half-life in blood. In this study, we used 163 natural and 98 modified peptides whose half-life has been determined experimentally in mammalian blood, for developing in silico models. Firstly, models have been developed on 261 peptides containing natural and modified residues, using different chemical descriptors. The best model using 43 PaDEL descriptors got a maximum correlation of 0.692 between the predicted and the actual half-life peptides. Secondly, models were developed on 163 natural peptides using amino acid composition feature of peptides and achieved a maximum correlation of 0.643. Thirdly, models were developed on 163 natural peptides using chemical descriptors and attained a maximum correlation of 0.743 using 45 selected PaDEL descriptors. In order to assist researchers in the prediction and designing of half-life of peptides, the models developed have been integrated into PlifePred web server (http://webs.iiitd.edu.in//raghava/plifepred/).

ParaPep is a repository of antiparasitic peptides, which provides comprehensive information related to experimentally validated antiparasitic peptide sequences and their structures. The data were collected and compiled from published research papers, patents and from various databases. The current release of ParaPep holds 863 entries among which 519 are unique peptides. In addition to peptides having natural amino acids, ParaPep also consists of peptides having d-amino acids and chemically modified residues. In ParaPep, most of the peptides have been evaluated for growth inhibition of various species of Plasmodium, Leishmania and Trypanosoma. We have provided comprehensive information about these peptides that include peptide sequence, chemical modifications, stereochemistry, antiparasitic activity, origin, nature of peptide, assay types, type of parasite, mode of action and hemolytic activity. Structures of peptides consisting of natural, as well as modified amino acids have been determined using state-of-the-art software, PEPstr. To facilitate users, various user-friendly web tools, for data fetching, analysis and browsing, have been integrated. We hope that ParaPep will be advantageous in designing therapeutic peptides against parasitic diseases.Database URL: http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/parapep/

Sheep pox and enterotoxemia are important diseases of sheep, and these diseases cause severe economic losses to sheep farmers. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the potential of formaldehyde-inactivated recombinant epsilon toxin as a vaccine candidate. The potency of the recombinant epsilon toxoid with aluminum hydroxide as an adjuvant in sheep was determined. Vaccinated sheep were protected against enterotoxemia, with potency values of >5 IU being protective. Further, the use of this construct in a combination vaccine against sheep pox resulted in the sheep being protected against both sheep pox and enterotoxemia.