title: CMKb: a web-based prototype for integrating Australian Aboriginal customary medicinal plant knowledge.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The customary medicinal plant knowledge possessed by the Australian Aboriginal people is a significant resource. Published information on it is scattered throughout the literature, in heterogeneous data formats, and is scattered among various Aboriginal communities across Australia, due to a multiplicity of languages. This ancient knowledge is at risk due to loss of biodiversity, cultural impact and the demise of many of its custodians. We have developed the Customary Medicinal Knowledgebase (CMKb), an integrated multidisciplinary resource, to document, conserve and disseminate this knowledge.
  
  
  METHODS
  CMKb is an online relational database for collating, disseminating, visualising and analysing initially public domain data on customary medicinal plants. The database stores information related to taxonomy, phytochemistry, biogeography, biological activities of customary medicinal plant species as well as images of individual species. The database can be accessed at http://biolinfo.org/cmkb. Known bioactive molecules are characterized within the chemoinformatics module of CMKb, with functions available for molecular editing and visualization.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CMKb has been developed as a prototype data resource for documenting, integrating, disseminating, analysing multidisciplinary customary medicinal plant data from Australia and to facilitate user-defined complex querying. Each species in CMKb is linked to online resources such as the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), NCBI Taxonomy, Australia's SpeciesLinks-Integrated Botanical Information System (IBIS) and Google images. The bioactive compounds are linked to the PubChem database. Overall, CMKb serves as a single knowledgebase for holistic plant-derived therapeutics and can be used as an information resource for biodiversity conservation, to lead discovery and conservation of customary medicinal knowledge.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. jgaikwad@cbms.mq.edu.au
authors.forename: Jitendra
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gaikwad
authors.forename: Varun
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Khanna
authors.forename: Subramanyam
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vemulpad
authors.forename: Joanne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jamie
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kohen
authors.forename: Shoba
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ranganathan
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D044822:Biodiversity; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D003628:Database Management Systems; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D030562:Databases, Protein; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems; D051188:Knowledge Bases; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000502:physiology*; D012306:Risk; D012984:Software