The Small Molecule Pathway Database (SMPDB) is a comprehensive, high-quality, freely accessible, online database containing more than 600 small molecule (i.e. metabolic) pathways found in humans. SMPDB is designed specifically to support pathway elucidation and pathway discovery in metabolomics, transcriptomics,

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

and

systems biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...

. It is able to do so, in part, by providing colorful, detailed, fully searchable, hyperlinked diagrams of five types of small molecule pathways: 1) general human metabolic pathways; 2) human metabolic disease pathways; 3) human

metabolite In biochemistry, a metabolite is an intermediate or end product of metabolism. The term is usually used for small molecules. Metabolites have various functions, including fuel, structure, signaling, stimulatory and inhibitory effects on enzymes, c ...

signaling pathways; 4) drug-action pathways and 5) drug metabolism pathways. SMPDB pathways may be navigated, viewed and zoomed interactively using a Google Maps-like interface. All SMPDB pathways include information on the relevant organs, subcellular compartments, protein cofactors, protein locations, metabolite locations, chemical structures and

protein quaternary structure Protein quaternary structure is the fourth (and highest) classification level of protein structure. Protein quaternary structure refers to the structure of proteins which are themselves composed of two or more smaller protein chains (also refe ...

s (Fig. 1). Each small molecule in SMPDB is hyperlinked to detailed descriptions contained in the HMDB or DrugBank and each protein or enzyme complex is hyperlinked to UniProt. Additionally, all SMPDB pathways are accompanied with detailed descriptions and references, providing an overview of the pathway, condition or processes depicted in each diagram. Users can browse the SMPDB (Fig. 2) or search its contents by text searching (Fig. 3), sequence searching, or chemical structure searching. More powerful queries are also possible including searching with lists of gene or protein names, drug names, metabolite names, GenBank IDs,

Swiss-Prot UniProt is a freely accessible database of protein sequence and functional information, many entries being derived from genome sequencing projects. It contains a large amount of information about the biological function of proteins derived from ...

IDs, Agilent or

Affymetrix Affymetrix is now Applied Biosystems, a brand of DNA microarray products sold by Thermo Fisher Scientific that originated with an American biotechnology research and development and manufacturing company of the same name. The Santa Clara, Califor ...

microarray A microarray is a multiplex lab-on-a-chip. Its purpose is to simultaneously detect the expression of thousands of genes from a sample (e.g. from a tissue). It is a two-dimensional array on a solid substrate—usually a glass slide or silicon t ...

IDs. These queries will produce lists of matching pathways and highlight the matching molecules on each of the pathway diagrams. Gene,

and protein concentration data can also be visualized through SMPDB's mapping interface. SMPDB is part of a suite of metabolomics databases that also includes

Human Metabolome Database The Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) is a comprehensive, high-quality, freely accessible, online database of small molecule metabolites found in the human body. Created by the Human Metabolome Project funded by Genome Canada. One of the first d ...

, DrugBank, and the

Toxin and Toxin-Target Database The Toxin and Toxin-Target Database (T3DB), also known as the Toxic Exposome Database, is a freely accessible online database of common substances that are toxic to humans, along with their protein, DNA or organ Biological target, targets. The dat ...

(T3DB). While DrugBank includes information on 7000 drugs and >4200 non-redundant drug targets,

enzymes Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecule ...

, transporters, and carriers, HMDB houses over 40,000 small molecule metabolites found in the human body. The suite is complemented by T3DB with its over 3100 common

toxic substances Poison is a chemical substance that has a detrimental effect to life. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figuratively, with a broa ...

and over 1300 corresponding toxin targets.

Version History

The first version of SMPDB was released on January 1, 2010. This release contained more than 350 image-mapped pathways for small molecule pathways. The viewer interface was limited to scroll-bar image navigation with 3-step (small, medium, large) zooming. The pathways in this first version were limited to 1) human metabolic pathways; 2) human metabolic disease pathways; and 3) human metabolite signaling pathways. The second version of SMPDB was released in 2014. This version contained more than 620 small molecule pathways. The viewer interface was enhanced to include a Google-Map-like interface with click-n-drag image navigation and unlimited, interactive zooming. The pathways in this second version were expanded to include: 1) general human metabolic pathways; 2) human metabolic disease pathways; 3) human metabolite signaling pathways; 4) drug action pathways and 5) drug metabolism pathways.

References

{{reflist Metabolomic databases Medical databases Biological databases

Version History

See also

References