title: Uniformly curated signaling pathways reveal tissue-specific cross-talks and support drug target discovery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Signaling pathways control a large variety of cellular processes. However, currently, even within the same database signaling pathways are often curated at different levels of detail. This makes comparative and cross-talk analyses difficult.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We present SignaLink, a database containing eight major signaling pathways from Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster and humans. Based on 170 review and approximately 800 research articles, we have compiled pathways with semi-automatic searches and uniform, well-documented curation rules. We found that in humans any two of the eight pathways can cross-talk. We quantified the possible tissue- and cancer-specific activity of cross-talks and found pathway-specific expression profiles. In addition, we identified 327 proteins relevant for drug target discovery.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We provide a novel resource for comparative and cross-talk analyses of signaling pathways. The identified multi-pathway and tissue-specific cross-talks contribute to the understanding of the signaling complexity in health and disease, and underscore its importance in network-based drug target selection.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  http://SignaLink.org.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Tamás
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Korcsmáros
authors.forename: Illés J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Farkas
authors.forename: Máté S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Szalay
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rovó
authors.forename: Dávid
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fazekas
authors.forename: Zoltán
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Spiró
authors.forename: Csaba
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Böde
authors.forename: Katalin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lenti
authors.forename: Tibor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vellai
authors.forename: Péter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Csermely
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000378:metabolism; D030562:Databases, Protein; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000378:metabolism; D055808:Drug Discovery; D006801:Humans; D047908:Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D047908:Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins