Requirements and ontology for a G protein-coupled receptor oligomerization knowledge base

Background: G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) are a large and diverse family of membrane proteins whose members participate in the regulation of most cellular and physiological processes and therefore represent key pharmacological targets. Although several bioinformatics resources support research on GPCRs, most of these have been designed based on the traditional assumption that monomeric GPCRs constitute the functional receptor unit. The increase in the frequency and number of reports about GPCR dimerization/oligomerization and the implication of oligomerization in receptor function makes necessary the ability to store and access information about GPCR dimers/oligomers electronically. Results: We present here the requirements and ontology (the information scheme to describe oligomers and associated concepts and their relationships) for an information system that can manage the elements of information needed to describe comprehensively the phenomena of both homo- and hetero-oligome...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Lucy Skrabanek, Marta Murcia, Michel Bouvier, Lakshmi Devi, Susan R. George, Martin J. Lohse, Graeme Milligan, Richard R. Neubig, Krzysztof Palczewski, Marc Parmentier, Jean-Philippe Pin, Gerrit Vriend, Jonathan A. Javitch, Fabien Campagne, Marta Filizola
• Keywords: BMCBI 2007, Functional Receptor Unit, Key Pharmacological Targets, Protein-Coupled Receptors