title: phiBIOTICS: catalogue of therapeutic enzybiotics, relevant research studies and practical applications.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The incidence of bacterial infections in humans along with the growing problem of antibiotic resistance is a major public health concern worldwide. Therefore it is necessary to develop novel therapeutic agents to control microbial pathogens. In this regard, enzybiotics, lytic enzymes endowed with the capacity to degrade bacterial cell wall, are a very promising group of alternative antimicrobials.
  
  
  METHODS
  Numerous experimental studies have confirmed unique therapeutic capabilities of enzybiotics and hence they are worth of wider attention of the medical community. In order to summarize the state of current knowledge of enzybiotics, we have developed phiBIOTICS, an information portal about known and studied therapeutic enzybiotics. phiBIOTICS contains information on chemical and biological properties of enzybiotics together with compendium of facts retrieved from research studies, where enzybiotics were applied. Our auxiliary phiBiScan program utility is dedicated for prediction of novel potential enzybiotics.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  phiBIOTICS presents a solid body of knowledge about all studied therapeutic enzybiotics to date. The database brings high-value information on outcomes of applied research and pre-clinical trials of these prospective antimicrobial agents. This information which was scattered in research papers with heterogeneous quality and relevance is now available in the form of manually curated database. phiBIOTICS and phiBiScan are freely accessible at http://www.phibiotics.org/.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Institute of Molecular Biology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dubravska cesta 21, Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Katarina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hojckova
authors.forename: Matej
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stano
authors.forename: Lubos
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Klucar
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001688:Biological Products / Q000494:pharmacology*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D009088:Mucoproteins / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D001688:Biological Products; D009088:Mucoproteins; C010393:lysin, gastropoda