UniHI: an entry gate to the human protein interactome

Systematic mapping of protein–protein interactions has become a central task of functional genomics. To map the human interactome, several strategies have recently been pursued. The generated interaction datasets are valuable resources for scientists in biology and medicine. However, comparison reveals limited overlap between different interaction networks. This divergence obstructs usability, as researchers have to interrogate numerous heterogeneous datasets to identify potential interaction partners for proteins of interest. To facilitate direct access through a single entry gate, we have started to integrate currently available human protein interaction data in an easily accessible online database. It is called UniHI (Unified Human Interactome) and is available at . At present, it is based on 10 major interaction maps derived by computational and experimental methods. It includes more than 150 000 distinct interactions between more than 17 000 unique human proteins. UniHI provides researchers with a flexible integrated tool for finding and using comprehensive information about the human interactome.

[1]  S. L. Wong,et al.  A Map of the Interactome Network of the Metazoan C. elegans , 2004, Science.

[2]  Igor Jurisica,et al.  Online Predicted Human Interaction Database , 2005, Bioinform..

[3]  Sue Povey,et al.  The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Database, 2006 updates , 2005, Nucleic Acids Res..

[4]  Ioannis Xenarios,et al.  DIP: The Database of Interacting Proteins: 2001 update , 2001, Nucleic Acids Res..

[5]  Razvan C. Bunescu,et al.  Consolidating the set of known human protein-protein interactions in preparation for large-scale mapping of the human interactome , 2005, Genome Biology.

[6]  Lincoln Stein,et al.  Reactome: a knowledgebase of biological pathways , 2004, Nucleic Acids Res..

[7]  B. Snel,et al.  Comparative assessment of large-scale data sets of protein–protein interactions , 2002, Nature.

[8]  James R. Knight,et al.  A Protein Interaction Map of Drosophila melanogaster , 2003, Science.

[9]  S. L. Wong,et al.  Towards a proteome-scale map of the human protein–protein interaction network , 2005, Nature.

[10]  A. Barabasi,et al.  A Protein–Protein Interaction Network for Human Inherited Ataxias and Disorders of Purkinje Cell Degeneration , 2006, Cell.

[11]  E. Birney,et al.  EnsMart: a generic system for fast and flexible access to biological data. , 2003, Genome research.

[12]  Gary D Bader,et al.  BIND--The Biomolecular Interaction Network Database. , 2001, Nucleic acids research.

[13]  James R. Knight,et al.  A comprehensive analysis of protein–protein interactions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae , 2000, Nature.

[14]  Robert Hoffmann,et al.  HomoMINT: an inferred human network based on orthology mapping of protein interactions discovered in model organisms , 2005, BMC Bioinformatics.

[15]  H. Lehrach,et al.  A protein interaction network links GIT1, an enhancer of huntingtin aggregation, to Huntington's disease. , 2004, Molecular cell.

[16]  R. Ozawa,et al.  A comprehensive two-hybrid analysis to explore the yeast protein interactome , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[17]  Hanno Steen,et al.  Development of human protein reference database as an initial platform for approaching systems biology in humans. , 2003, Genome research.

[18]  Marc Vidal,et al.  Predictive models of molecular machines involved in Caenorhabditis elegans early embryogenesis , 2005, Nature.

[19]  P. Bork,et al.  Functional organization of the yeast proteome by systematic analysis of protein complexes , 2002, Nature.

[20]  Ralf Mrowka,et al.  A Java applet for visualizing protein-protein interaction , 2001, Bioinform..

[21]  H. Herzel,et al.  Systematic functional assessment of human protein-protein interaction maps. , 2006, Genome informatics. International Conference on Genome Informatics.

[22]  Adam J. Smith,et al.  The Database of Interacting Proteins: 2004 update , 2004, Nucleic Acids Res..

[23]  H. Lehrach,et al.  A Human Protein-Protein Interaction Network: A Resource for Annotating the Proteome , 2005, Cell.

[24]  Erich E. Wanker,et al.  Comparison of Human Protein-Protein Interaction Maps , 2007, German Conference on Bioinformatics.

[25]  A. Fraser,et al.  A first-draft human protein-interaction map , 2004, Genome Biology.

[26]  Ian M. Donaldson,et al.  BIND: the Biomolecular Interaction Network Database , 2001, Nucleic Acids Res..