The Database of Sulfatases

Welcome to SulfAtlas, the database of sulfatases!

Widespread in nature, sulfated biomolecules are highly diverse in chemical structure and biological function. These compounds include sulfate esters (ROSO3-) and sulfamates (RN(H)SO3-) and range from small molecules to complex polymers. Sulfatases cleave sulfate groups from such molecules and constitute a biologically and industrially important group of enzymes. However, the number of sulfatases which have been characterized is limited in comparison to the huge diversity of the sulfated compounds. In the context of the explosion of genomic data, the functional annotation of sulfatases is thus particularly prone to flaws and misinterpretations. A classification system allowing for a better prediction of substrate specificity and for setting the limit of functional annotations was therefore urgently needed for sulfatases. SulfAtlas describes the family and sub-families of structurally-related sulfatases. Sub-families are created based on phylogenetic analyses and essentially correspond to different substrate specificities. Experimental evidences for the activity of new sulfatases will be regularly updated.
Release History
Version 2.3.1July 2022162,430 Entries (41,754: expert curated, 120,586: HMM classification; 151,467 available sulfatase sequences)
Version 1.3March 202241,769 Entries (35,566 available sulfatase sequences)
Version 1.2August 202141,541 Entries (35,857 available sulfatase sequences)
Version 1.1February 201935,118 Entries (31,327 available sulfatase sequences)
Version 1.0July 20134,550 Entries (4,543 available sulfatase sequences)

Database contents
Sulfatases162,340
Families4

Families
NameSulfatases
S1148,634
S24,280
S39,155
S4271

Stam, M, Lelièvre, P, Hoebeke, M, Corre, E, Barbeyron, T and Michel, G (2023), SulfAtlas, the sulfatase database: state of the art and new developments. Nucleic Acids Research, 51, D647-D653. DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkac977

Barbeyron T., Brillet-Guéguen L., Carré W., Carrière C., Caron C., Czjzek M., Hoebeke M., Michel G. 2016. Matching the Diversity of Sulfated Biomolecules: Creation of a Classification Database for Sulfatases Reflecting Their Substrate Specificity. PLoS One; 11(10):e0164846 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164846