TTD: Therapeutic Target Database

Abstract

A number of proteins and nucleic acids have been explored as therapeutic targets. These targets are subjects of interest in different areas of biomedical and pharmaceutical research and in the development and evaluation of bioinformatics, molecular modeling, computer-aided drug design and analytical tools. A publicly accessible database that provides comprehensive information about these targets is therefore helpful to the relevant communities. The Therapeutic Target Database (TTD) is designed to provide information about the known therapeutic protein and nucleic acid targets described in the literature, the targeted disease conditions, the pathway information and the corresponding drugs/ligands directed at each of these targets. Cross-links to other databases are also introduced to facilitate the access of information about the sequence, 3D structure, function, nomenclature, drug/ligand binding properties, drug usage and effects, and related literature for each target. This database can be accessed at http://xin.cz3.nus.edu.sg/group/ttd/ttd.asp and it currently contains entries for 433 targets covering 125 disease conditions along with 809 drugs/ligands directed at each of these targets. Each entry can be retrieved through multiple methods including target name, disease name, drug/ligand name, drug/ligand function and drug therapeutic classification.

Figure 1

The web interface of TTD. Five types of search mode are supported. This database is searchable by target name, disease name, drug/ligand name, drug/ligand function, drug classification or any combination of these.

Figure 2

The interface of a search result on TTD. All the targets that satisfy the specified search criteria are listed along with disease, drug/ligand name and drug classification.

Figure 3

Interface of the detailed information of target in TTD. Information related to disease, drug/ligand, pathway and some of the cross-database shortcuts are provided. In the case of one target having multi ligands, the ligands are separated with ‘│’, as well as their functions and CAS numbers.