virusMED

Metal binding sites, antigen epitopes, and drug binding sites are viral protein hotspots that control how viruses interact with their hosts. Like Google maps organizes and annotates points of interest on the planet, virus-M-E-D (Metal binding sites, antigenic Epitopes, and Drug binding sites) recognizes the relative locations of individual hotspots of viral proteins, and depicts a collection of maps upon which newly-characterized functional sites can be marked as they are being discovered. While we define drug as small molecule compounds collected by the DrugBank database, other small molecules binders observed in complex viral protein structures were also cataloged.

VirusMED's rich set of annotation tags about virus species, strains, hosts, proteins, metal ions, specific antibodies, and FDA approved drugs permits fast screening of viral protein hotspots tailored to a particular research problem. VirusMED connects a reliable structural resource and a custom-built virus search engine, laying a foundation for the rational design of preventative and therapeutic agents targeting viral infections.

Cite us: Zhang H, Chen P, Ma H, Woińska M, Liu D, Cooper DR, Peng G, Peng Y, Deng L, Minor W, Zheng H (2021) VirusMED: an atlas of hotspots of viral proteins. IUCr J. 8(6):931-942.

Since September 27, 2021, the cover story has been downloaded 6142 times. virusMED has served 4218 requests by 1912 users from 68 countries. Date updated: 2024-10-10



Gallery of commonly-encountered virus families that infect ...
... human and other vertebrates
Retroviridae
e.g. HIV-1
Coronaviridae
e.g. SARS-CoV-2
Orthomyxoviridae
e.g. Influenza A virus
Picornaviridae
e.g. Enterovirus A
Caliciviridae
e.g. Norwalk virus
Herpesviridae
e.g. Human γ-herpesvirus 4
Adenoviridae
e.g. Human adenovirus 2
Filoviridae
e.g. Ebola virus
Poxviridae
e.g. Vaccinia virus
Paramyxoviridae
e.g. Human respirovirus 3
Papillomaviridae
e.g. HPV-18
Polyomaviridae
e.g. Human polyomavirus 2
... human, other vertebrates, and invertebrates
Flaviviridae
e.g. Hepacivirus C
Reoviridae
e.g. Rotavirus A
Togaviridae
e.g. Chikungunya virus
... plants or protozoa
Virgaviridae
e.g. Tobacco mosaic virus
Tombusviridae
e.g. Carnation mottle virus
Mimiviridae
e.g. Mimivirus
... bacteria
Myoviridae
e.g. phage T4
Podoviridae
e.g. Salmonella virus P22
Siphoviridae
e.g. phage λ

Hotspot statistics of the virusMED database
Hotspot feature Number of virus families Number of virus species Number of virus strains Number of PDB structures Number of hotspots Number of unique proteins Number of unique hotspots
Metal binding sites 67 271 525 2,699 8,736 821 2,034
Epitopes 31 80 209 1,174 5,593 329 1,186
Drug binding sites 60 233 514 4,950 10,974 866 2,469
All hotspots 75 346 805 7,041 25,303 1,520 5,689