IntiCom-DB

IntiCom-DB catalogs experimentally supported inter-tissue communication (ITC) molecules and their explicit communication routes to support analysis of inter-tissue signaling in physiology and complex disease.

Key Features:

• Extensive Data Curation: Exhaustive manual review of nearly 190,000 scientific publications produced 1408 experimentally supported ITC entries, each annotated with ITC molecules, communication routes, and functional annotations.
• Expression Abundance Data: Includes mRNA and protein-level expression abundance information for ITC molecules and their interaction partners.
• Bioinformatics Insights: Provides analyses showing tissue specificity scores for ITC molecules are often higher at the protein level than at the mRNA level in target tissues, and that ITC molecules and their partners tend to be more abundant in source and target tissues.

Scientific Applications:

• Mechanistic studies of inter-tissue communication: Enables investigation of molecular routes and interactions mediating signaling between tissues.
• Homeostasis and disease research: Supports analyses of how inter-tissue communication maintains physiological homeostasis and how disruptions may contribute to complex diseases.

Methodology:

Manual curation of nearly 190,000 publications to extract 1408 experimentally supported ITC entries and bioinformatics analyses comparing tissue specificity scores at protein versus mRNA levels and abundance of ITC molecules and their interaction partners.