SuperSweet--a resource on natural and artificial sweetening agents.
A vast number of sweet tasting molecules are known, encompassing small compounds, carbohydrates, d-amino acids and large proteins. Carbohydrates play a particularly big role in human diet. The replacement of sugars in food with artificial sweeteners is common and is a general approach to prevent cavities, obesity and associated diseases such as diabetes and hyperlipidemia. Knowledge about the molecular basis of taste may reveal new strategies to overcome diet-induced diseases. In this context, the design of safe, low-calorie sweeteners is particularly important. Here, we provide a comprehensive collection of carbohydrates, artificial sweeteners and other sweet tasting agents like proteins and peptides. Additionally, structural information and properties such as number of calories, therapeutic annotations and a sweetness-index are stored in SuperSweet. Currently, the database consists of more than 8000 sweet molecules. Moreover, the database provides a modeled 3D structure of the sweet taste receptor and binding poses of the small sweet molecules. These binding poses provide hints for the design of new sweeteners. A user-friendly graphical interface allows similarity searching, visualization of docked sweeteners into the receptor etc. A sweetener classification tree and browsing features allow quick requests to be made to the database. The database is freely available at: http://bioinformatics.charite.de/sweet/.
Ahmed
Jessica
J
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Institute of Physiology, Structural Bioinformatics Group, Lindenberger Weg 80, 13125 Berlin, Germany.
Preissner
Saskia
S
Dunkel
Mathias
M
Worth
Catherine L
CL
Eckert
Andreas
A
Preissner
Robert
R
D000596:Amino Acids / Q000737:chemistry; D001665:Binding Sites; D002241:Carbohydrates / Q000737:chemistry; D016208:Databases, Factual; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D043562:Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled / Q000737:chemistry*; D040681:Structural Homology, Protein; D013549:Sweetening Agents / Q000737:chemistry*
D000596:Amino Acids; D002241:Carbohydrates; D011506:Proteins; D043562:Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled; D013549:Sweetening Agents; C431926:taste receptors, type 1