Antigen-Antibody Interaction Database (AgAbDb): a compendium of antigen-antibody interactions.

Antigen-Antibody Interaction Database (AgAbDb) is an immunoinformatics resource developed at the Bioinformatics Centre, University of Pune, and is available online at http://bioinfo.net.in/AgAbDb.htm. Antigen-antibody interactions are a special class of protein-protein interactions that are characterized by high affinity and strict specificity of antibodies towards their antigens. Several co-crystal structures of antigen-antibody complexes have been solved and are available in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). AgAbDb is a derived knowledgebase developed with an objective to compile, curate, and analyze determinants of interactions between the respective antigen-antibody molecules. AgAbDb lists not only the residues of binding sites of antigens and antibodies, but also interacting residue pairs. It also helps in the identification of interacting residues and buried residues that constitute antibody-binding sites of protein and peptide antigens. The Antigen-Antibody Interaction Finder (AAIF), a program developed in-house, is used to compile the molecular interactions, viz. van der Waals interactions, salt bridges, and hydrogen bonds. A module for curating water-mediated interactions has also been developed. In addition, various residue-level features, viz. accessible surface area, data on epitope segment, and secondary structural state of binding site residues, are also compiled. Apart from the PDB numbering, Wu-Kabat numbering and explicit definitions of complementarity-determining regions are provided for residues of antibodies. The molecular interactions can be visualized using the program Jmol. AgAbDb can be used as a benchmark dataset to validate algorithms for prediction of B-cell epitopes. It can as well be used to improve accuracy of existing algorithms and to design new algorithms. AgAbDb can also be used to design mimotopes representing antigens as well as aid in designing processes leading to humanization of antibodies.