Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Data Integration Solution for Organ-Specific Studies:
An Application for Oral Biology
José Melo 1 , Joel P. Arrais 1 , Edgar Coelho 1 , Pedro Lopes 1 , Nuno Rosa 2 ,
Maria José Correia 2 , Marlene Barros 2 , and José Luís Oliveira 1
1 Department of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI),
Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA),
University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
{jmsmelo,jpa,eduarte,pedrolopes,jlo}@ua.pt
2 Health Sciences Department, Portuguese Catholic University, 3504-505 Viseu, Portugal
{nrosa,mcorreia,mbarros}@crb.ucp.pt
Abstract. The human oral cavity is a complex ecosystem where multiple inte-
ractions occur and whose comprehension is critical in understanding several
disease mechanisms. In order to comprehend the composition of the oral cavity
at a molecular level, it is necessary to compile and integrate the biological in-
formation resulting from specific techniques, especially from proteomic studies
of saliva. The objective of this work was to compile and curate a specific group
of proteins related to the oral cavity, providing a tool to conduct further studies
of the salivary proteome. In this paper we present a platform that integrates in a
single endpoint all available information for proteins associated with the oral
cavity. The proposed tool allows researchers in biomedical sciences to explore
microorganisms, proteins and diseases, constituting a unique tool to analyse
meaningful interactions for oral health.
Keywords: Oral health, Data integration, Proteins, Diseases, Web services.
1
Introduction
Information available online is increasing rapidly. In order to be processed, this in-
creased amount of data requires the constant development of computer applications
that must adapt to increasingly complex requirements, particularly those related to the
integration of heterogeneous data and composition of distributed services.
Oral health is an area of research where these problems are particularly relevant.
Being a very specific area of study, researchers are faced with many problems in ob-
taining clinically relevant information concerning the oral cavity in an easy and trans-
parent way. This information must be stored and managed using tools that should
provide the user with functionalities to retrieve, store and search for this data.
Usually, databases for molecular biology are centred either on a specific organism,
such as SGD for Saccharomyces [1], or on a specific research topic, such as STRING
for protein-protein interaction [2]. In addition, databases like Entrez [3] or the Univer-
sal Protein Resource (UniProt) [4] play a major role as hubs of biomolecular informa-
tion, storing data from multiple topics and several organisms.
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