ArachnoServer is a manually curated database containing information on the sequence, three-dimensional structure, and biological activity of protein toxins derived from spider venom. Spiders are the largest group of venomous animals and they are predicted to contain by far the largest number of pharmacologically active peptide toxins (Escoubas et al., 2006). ArachnoServer has been custom-built so that a wide range of biological scientists, including neuroscientists, pharmacologists, and toxinologists, can readily access key data relevant to their discipline without being overwhelmed by extraneous information.

All spider toxin entries are sourced from EMBL and UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot then manually curated by our expert team using available literature and patent information. Spider taxonomy is based on the latest version of the authoritative World Spider Catalog. A key feature of ArachnoServer is the use of a molecular target ontology based on the channel and receptor subtype definitions recommended by IUPHAR. Moreover, in addition to any legacy synonyms, all peptide toxins in the database have been assigned names according to the recently described rational nomenclature for spider toxins (King et al., 2008).

ArachnoServer allows advanced searches of toxin information, browsing, as well as similarity searches using BLAST. Each toxin record is displayed in a single page and, where available, a toxin's structure can be dynamically visualised.

To get started, you can perform a simple search in the box at the top of the page; this searches toxin names, synonyms, spider common names, spider taxonomy, and toxin family information. For advanced searches, click either the 'search' tab or the 'advanced' link below the search box at the top of the page. Help snippets are available at the top right hand corner of the 'search', 'browse' and 'blast' pages.