GenCoNet - A Graph Database for the Analysis of Comorbidities by Gene Networks

J Integr Bioinform. 2018 Dec 25;15(4):20180049. doi: 10.1515/jib-2018-0049.

Abstract

The prevalence of comorbid diseases poses a major health issue for millions of people worldwide and an enormous socio-economic burden for society. The molecular mechanisms for the development of comorbidities need to be investigated. For this purpose, a workflow system was developed to aggregate data on biomedical entities from heterogeneous data sources. The process of integrating and merging all data sources of the workflow system was implemented as a semi-automatic pipeline that provides the import, fusion, and analysis of the highly connected biomedical data in a Neo4j database GenCoNet. As a starting point, data on the common comorbid diseases essential hypertension and bronchial asthma was integrated. GenCoNet (https://genconet.kalis-amts.de) is a curated database that provides a better understanding of hereditary bases of comorbidities.

Keywords: Asthma; Comorbidity; Database; Hypertension; Pipeline; Workflow.

MeSH terms

  • Asthma / epidemiology
  • Asthma / genetics
  • Asthma / pathology*
  • Comorbidity
  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Computer Graphics*
  • Databases, Factual*
  • Essential Hypertension / epidemiology
  • Essential Hypertension / genetics
  • Essential Hypertension / pathology*
  • Gene Regulatory Networks*
  • Humans
  • Software*
  • Workflow

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the International DFG Research Training Group GRK Funder Id: 10.13039/501100001659, 1906/1 and the Volkswagen Foundation Trilateral Partnerships Funder Id: 10.13039/501100001663, 90335 – Cooperation Projects between Scholars and Scientists from Ukraine, Russia, and Germany “In silico screening and experimental validation of new drug targets for the treatment of co-morbid multifactorial diseases”.