Proteome database of Serratia marcescens strain SMO3

Originally an environmental microorganism common in soil and water, Serratia marcescens is increasingly recognized as an opportunistic human pathogen, especially in hospital acquired infections. Typical infection sites include catheter, urinary tract and wounds, which speaks for the Gram-negative facultative anaerobic bacterium’s preference for damp conditions. But, the defining attribute of the bacterium is its red colouration due to a tripyrrole pigment, prodigiosin. Overall, S. marcescens remains a less well characterized human pathogen, which opens up much room for research both from the fundamental biology and clinical perspectives. This work sought to shed some light on fundamental aspects of the bacterium through parsing the UniProt proteome file of S. marcescens strain SMO3 using an in-house MATLAB software. Through this exercise, a proteome database comprising protein name, amino acid sequence, number of residues, molecular weight and nucleotide sequence was constructed. This provides the necessary starting point for either genome editing approaches in designing specific mutants useful for characterising functions of particular genes, or in understanding the interactions of different pathways in mediating pathogenesis using a systems biology approach. Altogether, the presented proteome database should find use in a variety of basic microbiological and clinical research seeking to unveil the secrets of this human pathogen.