Building A Receptor Database

Abstract

We have developed a database of receptors, which gather data from information sources on the Internet. The source of this database is a variety of genomic and biological information on the internet; PIR, Swiss Prot, PDB, GenBank, EMBL, GDB, etc... The system provides the detail structure and functional information on receptors, such as ligand binding site and DNA binding site, which were picked up from the references, and the three dimensional structures. The system was implemented on the unix workstation (IRIS, INDIGO 2), using an object oriented database management system ACEDB (A Caenorhabditis elegans Data Base). ACEDB is an object oriented database management system, which has been developed as part of the Caenorhabditis elegans genome research. This database is a generalized genome database, and can be used to create new database without the need for any reprogramming or in fact any sophisticated computer skills. The system provides various viewing tools that e ectively display di erent types of receptor data; DNA sequences, amino acids sequences, DNA binding sites, ligand binding sites, gene and disease information, and the protein structural information. It can also display three dimensional structure of molecules using a freeware molecular graphics RASMOL. The detail information for ligand and signal transduction, which are picked up from references, are also included. The system has also a browser interface so that database can be accessed via World Wide Web. The information regarding the sites of action on the receptor are highly interesting in biologically, medically and pharmacologically. The database may be useful for quick reference for ligand-membrane receptors and signal transduction in the drug design. We may use the database for the functional and structural analyses of receptors.