The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY is an

open-access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

website, acting as a portal to information on the biological targets of licensed drugs and other small molecules. The Guide to PHARMACOLOGY (with GtoPdb being the standard abbreviation) is developed as a joint venture between the

International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology The International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) is a voluntary, non-profit association representing the interests of scientists in pharmacology-related fields to facilitate ''Better Medicines through Global Education and Rese ...

(IUPHAR) and the

British Pharmacological Society The British Pharmacological Society is the primary UK learned society for pharmacologists concerned with research into drugs and the way they work. Members work in academia, industry, regulatory agencies and the health services, and many are medi ...

(BPS). This replaces and expands upon the original 2009 IUPHAR Database (standard abbreviation IUPHAR-DB). The Guide to PHARMACOLOGY aims to provide a concise overview of all pharmacological targets, accessible to all members of the scientific and clinical communities and the interested public, with links to details on a selected set of targets. The information featured includes pharmacological data, target, and gene nomenclature, as well as curated chemical information for ligands. Overviews and commentaries on each target family are included, with links to key references.

Background and development

The Guide to PHARMACOLOGY was initially made available online in December 2011 with additional material released in July 2012. Maintained by a team of curators based at the University of Edinburgh, the Guide to PHARMACOLOGY is developed by an international network of contributors, including the editors of the Concise Guide to PHARMACOLOGY. As with the original IUPHAR-DB, the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) Committee on Receptor Nomenclature and Drug Classification (NC-IUPHAR), acts as the scientific advisory and editorial board for the database. Its network of over 500 specialist advisors (organized into ~90 subcommittees) contribute expertise and data. The current PI and Grant holder of the GtoPdb project is Prof. Jamie A. Davies. The development and release of the first version of the GtoPdb in 2012 were described in an editorial published in the

British Journal of Pharmacology The ''British Journal of Pharmacology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed medical journal covering all aspects of experimental pharmacology. It is published for the British Pharmacological Society by Wiley-Blackwell. It was established in 1946 as th ...

entitled 'Guide to Pharmacology.org- an update'. The IUPHAR-DB is no longer being developed and all the information contained within this site is now available through the Guide to PHARMACOLOGY (IUPHAR-DB links should now re-direct).

Content and features

The target groups currently included on the Guide to PHARMACOLOGY are: * Catalytic receptors *

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

s *

G protein-coupled receptor G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), also known as seven-(pass)-transmembrane domain receptors, 7TM receptors, heptahelical receptors, serpentine receptors, and G protein-linked receptors (GPLR), form a large group of evolutionarily-related p ...

s * Ion channels * Kinases * Nuclear receptors * Transporters * Other protein targets including

fatty acid-binding protein The fatty-acid-binding proteins (FABPs) are a family of transport proteins for fatty acids and other lipophilic substances such as eicosanoids and retinoids. These proteins are thought to facilitate the transfer of fatty acids between extra- an ...

sigma receptor Sigma receptors (σ-receptors) are protein cell surface receptors that bind ligands such as 4-PPBP (4-phenyl-1-(4-phenylbutyl) piperidine), SA 4503 (cutamesine), ditolylguanidine, dimethyltryptamine, and siramesine. There are two subtypes, ...

s and adiponectin receptors Information for each target group is subdivided into families based on classification, with a separate data page for each family. Within each page, targets are arranged into lists of tables, with each table including the protein and gene nomenclature for the target with links to gene nomenclature databases, and listing selected ligands with activity at the target, including agonists, antagonists, inhibitors and radioligands. Pharmacological data and references are given and each ligand is hyperlinked to a ligand page displaying nomenclature and a chemical structure or peptide sequence, along with synonyms and relevant database links. The Guide to PHARMACOLOGY also includes a list of all ligand molecules included on the site, subdivided into categories including small organic molecules (including mammalian metabolites,

hormone A hormone (from the Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and behavior. Hormones are require ...

s and neurotransmitters), synthetic organic molecules, natural products,

peptide Peptides (, ) are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Long chains of amino acids are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. ...

s, inorganic molecules and antibodies. A complete list of all the approved drugs included on the website is also available via the ligand list. The Guide to PHARMACOLOGY is being expanded to include clinical information on targets and ligands, in addition to educational resources. Search features on the website include quick and advanced search options, and receptor and ligand searches, including support for ligand structures using chemical structures. Other features include 'Hot topic' news items and a recent receptor-ligand pairing list.

IUPHAR Guide to IMMUNOPHARMACOLOGY

Between November 2015 and October 2018, the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

supported a project to develop th
IUPHAR Guide to IMMUNOPHARMACOLOGY
(GtoImmuPdb), based on the GtoPdb schema. The GtoImmuPdb is an open-access resource that brings an immunological perspective to the high-quality, expert-curated pharmacological data found in the existing IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY. Protein targets and ligands relevant to immunopharmacology have been tagged and curated into GtoImmuPdb. These have also been associated with new immunological data types such as immunological processes, cell types, and disease. GtoImmuPdb provides a knowledge base that connects immunology with pharmacology, bringing added value and supporting research and development of drugs targeted at modulating immune, inflammatory or infectious components of the disease.

The Concise Guide to PHARMACOLOGY

The Guide to PHARMACOLOGY includes an online, open-access database version of the Concise Guide to PHARMACOLOGY, previously "The Guide to Receptors and Channels" available in HTML, PDF and printed formats. A hard copy summary of the online database is published as ''The Concise Guide to Pharmacology 2017/2018'' as a series of papers as a bi-annual supplement to the

Database links

The Guide to PHARMACOLOGY includes links to other relevant resources via target and ligand pages on both the concise and detailed view pages. Many of these resources maintain reciprocal links with the relevant Guide to PHARMACOLOGY pages. *

HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) is a committee of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) that sets the standards for human gene nomenclature. The HGNC approves a ''unique'' and ''meaningful'' name for every known human gene, based on a ...

Mouse Genome Informatics Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI) is a free, online database and bioinformatics resource hosted by The Jackson Laboratory, with funding by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Eunice Kenne ...

* Rat genome database *

Ensembl Ensembl genome database project is a scientific project at the European Bioinformatics Institute, which provides a centralized resource for geneticists, molecular biologists and other researchers studying the genomes of our own species and other v ...

UniProt 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 ...

Entrez The Entrez (pronounced ''ɒnˈtreɪ'') Global Query Cross-Database Search System is a federated search engine, or web portal that allows users to search many discrete health sciences databases at the National Center for Biotechnology Information ...

PubChem PubChem is a database of chemical molecules and their activities against biological assays. The system is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a component of the National Library of Medicine, which is part of ...

ChemSpider ChemSpider is a database of chemicals. ChemSpider is owned by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Database The database contains information on more than 100 million molecules from over 270 data sources including: * EPA DSSTox * U.S. Food and D ...

ChEMBL ChEMBL or ChEMBLdb is a manually curated chemical database of bioactive molecules with drug-like properties. It is maintained by the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory ( EMBL), based at the Wel ...

ChEBI Chemical Entities of Biological Interest, also known as ChEBI, is a chemical database and ontology of molecular entities focused on 'small' chemical compounds, that is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) effort at the European Bioinf ...

KEGG KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) is a collection of databases dealing with genomes, biological pathways, diseases, drugs, and chemical substances. KEGG is utilized for bioinformatics research and education, including data analysis i ...

Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) is a continuously updated catalog of human genes and genetic disorders and traits, with a particular focus on the gene-phenotype relationship. , approximately 9,000 of the over 25,000 entries in OMIM ...

(OMIM) *

DrugBank The DrugBank database is a comprehensive, freely accessible, online database containing information on drugs and drug targets created and maintained by the University of Alberta and The Metabolomics Innovation Centre located in Alberta, Canada. ...

Protein Data Bank The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is a database for the three-dimensional structural data of large biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. The data, typically obtained by X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, or, increasingly, ...

Future directions

Following funding from the

, from 2012 to 2015 the Guide to PHARMACOLOGY was expanded to include the biological targets of all prescription drugs and other likely targets of future small molecule drugs. Overviews of the key features of a wide range of targets are provided on the summary view pages, with detailed view pages providing more in-depth information on the properties of a selected subset of targets. As of January 2018 the Medicines for Malaria Venture is supporting a new extension to develop th
Guide to Malaria Pharmacology
The core GtoPdb continues to be supported by the

References

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External links

IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY

2021 edition
of the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY (published in BJP)
International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR)

British Journal of Pharmacology

Concise Guide to PHARMACOLOGY

Wellcome Trust

Medicines for Malaria Venture
Biological databases Pharmacology Pharmacological classification systems