MMRdb: A specialized measles, mumps, and rubella database and analysis resource

Abstract Measles, mumps, and rubella are well known virus pathogens that cause mild to severe illnesses. Despite the existence of MMR vaccines since 1971, outbreaks have been largely documented even in highly vaccinated populations. There is a pressing need to develop a resource to monitor genetic and antigenic variations among these viruses. MMRdb is a web central database and analysis resource for measles, mumps, and rubella. Users can search virus at gene level and obtain sequence information based on gene product, geographic location, year, or host. We implemented several computation tools including: Clustal-Omega multiple sequence alignment, Geo Maps, and BLAST sequence similarity search. Furthermore, we have integrated antigenic epitopes data, which will facilitate the identification of antigenic variants. The main features of this database assist in: monitoring strains variations, track geographic spreads of outbreaks with regards of sequence information, and facilitate immunoinformatics based vaccine design. Database URL: http://mmrdb.org