Last month we updated our site to include the results of our curation efforts since the start of the year. Our main focus of 2014 so far has been curation of approved drugs and clinical targets, and the site has now expanded to include 1000 approved drugs and their ~250 data-supported primary targets. This set represents a minimal set of approved drugs and targets obtained by intersecting and analysing multiple publically available datasets. For those interested in more detailed information on our methods for drug consensus mappings please see this blog post by our team member Chris Southan, and our recent poster on the topic.
The latest release has also seen updates to existing content and new features introduced to the site.
Approved drug and target curation
Our progress since the last update includes:
- ~300 new approved drugs have been added to the database, including small organics and antibodies. These drugs include all the new FDA approvals of 2013 and 2014, and drugs used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
- Approved drug pages now include approval dates by the FDA/EMA and summaries of clinical use and molecular mechanisms of action (see below).
- The data-supported primary targets of drugs are indicated with a new symbol
; IC50s and Kis for human targets (or where not available, other mammalian species) have been curated from the literature. - New targets include chromatin modifying enzymes, bromodomain-containing proteins, ribosomal factors and kelch-like proteins.
- Pathophysiological phenotype information and links to OMIM and Orphanet databases added for more targets.
- High specificity call-outs from ligand pages to PubMed clinical trial reports. N.B. the use of call outs for users offers an instant update from PubMed as opposed to a static link.
- Annotation of, and cross-linking between prodrugs and their active forms.
Clinical data tab from our Imatinib ligand page
Case study: Drugs and Targets in Alzheimer‘s disease
One of our curators, Chris Southan, has completed work on a case study for the curation of drugs and targets involved in Alzheimer’s disease. This project has seen the addition of new approved drugs, compounds in clinical trials and research compounds to the database, all with their pharmacology curated from the literature. The ‘biological activity’ tables and comments for these ligand pages now include patent data in cases where there are SAR data for compounds or analogues. Our database can also now be searched by disease name to retrieve ligand and target pages. Here’s an example of a search using the term ‘Alzheimer’s’:
Results page from using ‘Alzheimer’s’ as a search term
Updates to other content
Our latest database update also saw new information added to several of our existing target pages:
- Updated GPCR target pages: bombesin, bile acid, angiotensin, LPA & S1P family pages
- Updated introduction for formylpeptide receptors
- Updated content on the voltage-gated calcium channel subunits Cav1.1-1.4 & introduction
- Cross-links added between GPCRDB and GtoPdb, and the UniProt and HGNC databases now link to GtoPdb.
The database now includes 2655 protein entries and 6653 ligands.
New features
The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY web portal now incorporates all content from the original IUPHAR Database site including the hot topics and recent pairings pages. The http://www.iuphar-db.org address will be retired over the coming years so be sure to update your bookmarks to the new site.
New file formats have been added to the download page, and complete download files of the database content are now available.
We have also recently set up a Slideshare account.
We are continuing to add approved drugs, clinical candidates and new targets to the site and our next update will be due in the summer, so watch this space and our social media for news of the next release, or sign up for email alerts using the form on our homepage.
guidetopharmacology blog 
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