title: VFDB 2012 update: toward the genetic diversity and molecular evolution of bacterial virulence factors.
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.
authors: State Key Laboratory for Molecular Virology and Genetic Engineering, Institute of Pathogen Biology, Chinese Academy Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100176, China.
authors: Lihong
authors: L
authors: Chen
authors: Zhaohui
authors: Z
authors: Xiong
authors: Lilian
authors: L
authors: Sun
authors: Jian
authors: J
authors: Yang
authors: Qi
authors: Q
authors: Jin
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation; D010802:Phylogeny; D037521:Virulence Factors / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D037521:Virulence Factors