Microbial virulence is a fasting-moving field. It is now apparent that bacterial pathogens share many mechanisms of pathogenesis, including host cell attachment, invasion, intracellular survival, acquisition of iron etc. We attempt to summarize some of the most important virulence mechanisms by showing different organization and different composition of VFs and identifying core components, phylogenetic clades, shedding new light on the forces that shape the evolutionary history of bacterial pathogensis.
We are keen to provide a sound, authoritative overview of bacterial virulence factors, and to compile the latest and most relevant information to inform, stimulate, and excite, the researcher, the teacher, and the student. If you find any mistakes or you have any comments, please feel free to contact us.

Tips:

1)

Click the arrow button or vertical bar to show the main menu.

2)

The tables are fully sortable and filterable by a single click on the column title, and each column is also movable and scalable (or hidden) by dragging and dropping on the title.

3)

In graphic view, genes of the same color or pattern encodes proteins of similar function. Proteins that do not have homologues are shown as white arrow with black border. Gene name with the underline indicates its 3D structure is available. In chaperone/usher pathway and type III secretion systems, one or two letters under the arrow are used to indicate the function of each gene, such as Ma for major subunit, C for chaperone, and so on. Just put your cursor on the letter, you'll see the information.

4)The phylogenetic trees are calculated from alignments of core components or core domains for each class or subclass of virulence factors. Bacterial taxons are indicated by the font color:

Actinobacteria	purple
Chlamydiae	orange
Bacilli	brown
Clostridia	blue
alpha-proteobacteria	blue violet
beta-proteobacteria	green
gamma-proteobacteria	black
delta-proteobacteria	dark khaki
epsilon-proteobacteria	red
Mollicutes	pink

FAQs: What's the difference/relationship between the contents of each release of VFDB? ...