title: The functional therapeutic chemical classification system.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Drug repositioning is the discovery of new indications for compounds that have already been approved and used in a clinical setting. Recently, some computational approaches have been suggested to unveil new opportunities in a systematic fashion, by taking into consideration gene expression signatures or chemical features for instance. We present here a novel method based on knowledge integration using semantic technologies, to capture the functional role of approved chemical compounds.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In order to computationally generate repositioning hypotheses, we used the Web Ontology Language to formally define the semantics of over 20 000 terms with axioms to correctly denote various modes of action (MoA). Based on an integration of public data, we have automatically assigned over a thousand of approved drugs into these MoA categories. The resulting new resource is called the Functional Therapeutic Chemical Classification System and was further evaluated against the content of the traditional Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System. We illustrate how the new classification can be used to generate drug repurposing hypotheses, using Alzheimers disease as a use-case.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/ftc; https://github.com/loopasam/ftc.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  croset@ebi.ac.uk
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
authors.affiliation: European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Croset
authors.forename: John P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Overington
authors.forename: Dietrich
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rebholz-Schuhmann
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy; D058492:Drug Repositioning / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000145:classification; D064798:Polypharmacology
chemical_list: D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations