BioCyc database collection

The BioCyc database collection is a set of biological databases. Databases within BioCyc describe genome and pathway information for individual organisms. BioCyc is maintained by SRI International, in Menlo Park, California.

Two databases within BioCyc are highly curated, meaning they have received extensive manual updating with information from the scientific literature. Those databases are EcoCyc and MetaCyc. The remaining BioCyc databases were generated computationally to predict what metabolic pathways are present in these organisms. In some cases, the databases were refined manually after their generation. As of October 2010, BioCyc contained databases for 1,004 genomes.

The BioCyc website contains a variety of software tools for searching, visualizing, comparing, and analyzing genome and pathway information. It includes a genome browser, and browsers for metabolic and regulatory networks. The website also includes tools for painting large-scale ("omics") datasets onto metabolic and regulatory networks, and onto the genome.

BioCyc databases rely on a software system called Pathway Tools for their initial generation, subsequent updating, and for querying their content. The databases can also be installed locally.

All BioCyc databases share the same database schema, which facilitates comparisons across the databases.