IntAct--open source resource for molecular interaction data

Abstract

IntAct is an open source database and software suite for modeling, storing and analyzing molecular interaction data. The data available in the database originates entirely from published literature and is manually annotated by expert biologists to a high level of detail, including experimental methods, conditions and interacting domains. The database features over 126,000 binary interactions extracted from over 2100 scientific publications and makes extensive use of controlled vocabularies. The web site provides tools allowing users to search, visualize and download data from the repository. IntAct supports and encourages local installations as well as direct data submission and curation collaborations. IntAct source code and data are freely available from http://www.ebi.ac.uk/intact.

Figure 1

Representation of the hierarchy of interactor type viewed in the Ontology Lookup Service (). Clicking on a controlled vocabulary term displays additional information such as definition, literature references, cross references, etc.

Figure 2

The IntAct experiment view. This view provides a very deep level of detail, including publication reference, experimental conditions and details of the interaction and the participants. In the example shown above, the specific binding region is described as an amino acid sequence range. In addition, there are details of point mutation leading to a decrease of the participants' binding affinity. This interaction was found by searching for its IMEx accession number (i.e. IM-1302). It appears in the record as a cross reference (Xref) of the interaction. Should users be wishing to download this data, a list of available formats is available on the top left corner of the screen. The download encompasses the whole dataset related to the publication currently being displayed.