BEST: a Shiny/R web-based application to easily retrieve cross-related enzyme functional parameters and information from BRENDA.

Abstract

BRENDA is the largest enzyme functional database, containing information of 84 000 experimentally characterized enzyme entries. This database is an invaluable resource for researchers in the biological field, which classifies enzyme-related information in categories that are very useful to obtain specific functional and protein engineering information for enzyme families. However, the BRENDA web interface, the most used by researchers with a non-informatic background, does not allow the user to cross-reference data from different categories or sub-categories in the database. Obtaining information in an easy and fast way, in a friendly web interface, without the necessity to have a deep informatics knowledge, will facilitate and improve research in the enzymology and protein engineering field. We developed the Brenda Easy Search Tool (BEST), an interactive Shiny/R application that enables querying the BRENDA database for complex cross-tabulated characteristics, and retrieving enzyme-related parameters and information readily and efficiently, which can be used for the study of enzyme function or as an input for other bioinformatics tools. BEST and its tutorial are freely available from https://pesb2.cl/best/. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.