title: DESTAF: a database of text-mined associations for reproductive toxins potentially affecting human fertility.
abstract: The Dragon Exploration System for Toxicants and Fertility (DESTAF) is a publicly available resource which enables researchers to efficiently explore both known and potentially novel information and associations in the field of reproductive toxicology. To create DESTAF we used data from the literature (including over 10500 PubMed abstracts), several publicly available biomedical repositories, and specialized, curated dictionaries. DESTAF has an interface designed to facilitate rapid assessment of the key associations between relevant concepts, allowing for a more in-depth exploration of information based on different gene/protein-, enzyme/metabolite-, toxin/chemical-, disease- or anatomically centric perspectives. As a special feature, DESTAF allows for the creation and initial testing of potentially new association hypotheses that suggest links between biological entities identified through the database. DESTAF, along with a PDF manual, can be found at http://cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/destaf. It is free to academic and non-commercial users and will be updated quarterly.
authors.affiliation: Computational Bioscience Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Adam S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Dawe
authors.forename: Aleksandar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Radovanovic
authors.forename: Mandeep
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kaur
authors.forename: Sunil
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sagar
authors.forename: Sundararajan V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Seshadri
authors.forename: Ulf
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Schaefer
authors.forename: Allan A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Kamau
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Christoffels
authors.forename: Vladimir B
authors.initials: VB
authors.lastname: Bajic
mesh_terms: D016000:Cluster Analysis; D057225:Data Mining; D016208:Databases, Factual; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000187:drug effects; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012098:Reproduction / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D012985:Software Design; D018511:Systems Integration; D014584:User-Computer Interface