IndelFR: a database of indels in protein structures and their flanking regions

Insertion/deletion (indel) is one of the most common methods of protein sequence variation. Recent studies showed that indels could affect their flanking regions and they are important for protein function and evolution. Here, we describe the Indel Flanking Region Database (IndelFR, http://indel.bioinfo.sdu.edu.cn), which provides sequence and structure information about indels and their flanking regions in known protein domains. The indels were obtained through the pairwise alignment of homologous structures in SCOP superfamilies. The IndelFR database contains 2 925 017 indels with flanking regions extracted from 373 402 structural alignment pairs of 12 573 non-redundant domains from 1053 superfamilies. IndelFR provides access to information about indels and their flanking regions, including amino acid sequences, lengths, locations, secondary structure constitutions, hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity, domain information, 3D structures and so on. IndelFR has already been used for molecular evolution studies and may help to promote future functional studies of indels and their flanking regions.