Polysaccharide-Utilization Loci DataBase (PULDB)

PULDB describes Polysaccharide Utilization Loci (PULs) experimentally characterized in the literature, but also 73,782 PUL predictions in 2,227 Bacteroidetes species.
A PUL is a set of physically-linked genes organized around a susCD gene pair. PULs are prevalent in the Bacteroidetes phylum. They provide an evolutionary advantage to these species by orchestrating the breakdown of complex glycans thanks to the encoded CAZymes. Please note that our PUL prediction tool tends to predict more PULs with multiple tandem susCD pairs than what is seen in experimentally determined cases.

Citing PULDB

A new reference for PULDB ! In the 2018 database issue of Nucleic Acids Research, we summarize the many changes that have occurred in the PULDB during the previous two years.
Terrapon N, Lombard V, Drula É, Lapébie P, Al-Masaudi S, Gilbert HJ, Henrissat B (2017) PULDB: the expanded database of Polysaccharide Utilization Loci; Nucleic Acids Research Link to the publication

To refer the prediction method
Terrapon, N., Lombard, V., Gilbert, H.J. and Henrissat, B. (2015) Automatic prediction of polysaccharide utilization loci in Bacteroidetes species from the human gut microbiota; Bioinformatics 31(5):647-55 - Link to the publication

List by species/taxon or browse PULDB taxonomy


Include CAZyme clusters?
Search for PULs with specific modules
Enter one or multiple modules (list available here) separated by '+'
Module(s)  Force order? Add CAZyme clusters?
Search for a protein

or a substrate
   Note: [Fn], [Fc] and [F] indicate a possibly fragmented gene (e.g. a missing signal peptide or an incomplete catalytic module) at N- or C-terminus or both/undetermined, respectively, and [EC] denotes functional characterization of the gene in the litterature (EC number assigned by CAZy curators).