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. 2013 Apr 12:2013:bat021.
doi: 10.1093/database/bat021. Print 2013.

A database for curating the associations between killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors and diseases in worldwide populations

Louise Y C Takeshita  1 , Faviel F Gonzalez-Galarza, Eduardo J M dos Santos, Maria Helena T Maia, Mushome M Rahman, Syed M S Zain, Derek Middleton, Andrew R Jones
Affiliations

A database for curating the associations between killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors and diseases in worldwide populations

Louise Y C Takeshita et al. Database (Oxford). .

Abstract

The killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) play a fundamental role in the innate immune system, through their interactions with human leucocyte antigen (HLA) molecules, leading to the modulation of activity in natural killer (NK) cells, mainly related to killing pathogen-infected cells. KIR genes are hugely polymorphic both in the number of genes an individual carries and in the number of alleles identified. We have previously developed the Allele Frequency Net Database (AFND, http://www.allelefrequencies.net), which captures worldwide frequencies of alleles, genes and haplotypes for several immune genes, including KIR genes, in healthy populations, covering >4 million individuals. Here, we report the creation of a new database within AFND, named KIR and Diseases Database (KDDB), capturing a large quantity of data derived from publications in which KIR genes, alleles, genotypes and/or haplotypes have been associated with infectious diseases (e.g. hepatitis C, HIV, malaria), autoimmune disorders (e.g. type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis), cancer and pregnancy-related complications. KDDB has been created through an extensive manual curation effort, extracting data on more than a thousand KIR-disease records, comprising >50 000 individuals. KDDB thus provides a new community resource for understanding not only how KIR genes are associated with disease, but also, by working in tandem with the large data sets already present in AFND, where particular genes, genotypes or haplotypes are present in worldwide populations or different ethnic groups. We anticipate that KDDB will be an important resource for researchers working in immunogenetics. Database URL: http://www.allelefrequencies.net/diseases/.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The data curation pipeline, the types of data that were extracted from each publication and the submission workflow developed within KDDB.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Screenshots of the data submission pipeline within KDDB.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
The query interface within KDDB, showing the additional detail about a given association study retrieved by following the hyperlink.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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