Cell interaction knowledgebase: an online database for innate immune cells, cytokines and chemokines

The innate immune system is fundamental to the recognition of pathogens, triggering of immune-inflammatory response and host defense. Recent advance in this area has resulted in enormous amount of data, which are stored across different databases. Integrating relevant information from these different data sources is difficult because of their heterogeneous nature and dispersed physical location. We present here a single portal system, Cell Interaction Knowledgebase, with focus on the innate immunity. In particular, the knowledgebase houses comprehensive information on innate immune cells and cytokines/chemokines which are the principal mediators of communication among the immune cells. Currently the knowledgebase consists of extensive information on 2 major innate immune cell types (Macrophages and Dendritic cells) and 7 6 cytokines/chemokines for both human and mouse. In addition, intra-cellular molecular interactions and inter-cellular interactions involved in the innate immunity are curated and presented in an interactive and dynamic manner by animated pathways and query-driven cell-interaction map respectively. This is one of the first databases that houses extensive phenotypic, signaling, genomic, proteomic and knockout data on both the innate immune cells and their attendant cytokines/chemokines, and is aimed to evolve as a one-stop-shop for immunologists. The first version of database is available at http://cell-interaction.bii.a-star.edu.sg/.