Data Curation and Storage

Data curation and storage is a strength of our group. In 2002, we developed MINT (the Molecular INTeraction database) which was soon recognized by the international community as one of the main protein interaction databases. Our mission is to adopt high quality data standards and to offer solid web services. MINT is an active member of the IMEx consortium, together with other partners of the Molecular Interaction work group of the HUPO-PSI. Since 2013, IntAct and MINT joined forces to create the MIntAct project, a single resource to improve curation and software development efforts. While continuing our work in data curation and storage and we are now broadening our resources with new services: mentha and virus mentha, integrated interactome databases, and SIGNOR an extensive signaling interaction database.

Biological databases are essential for bioinformatics research and applications. There is a huge number of available databases covering almost everything from DNA and protein sequences, molecular structures, to phenotypes and biodiversity. Databases generally fall into one of three types. Some contain data resulting directly from empirical methods such as gene knockouts (e.g. MINT). Others consist of predicted data, and most contain data from both sources. There are meta-databases that incorporate data compiled from multiple other databases (e.g. mentha and VirusMentha). Some others are specialized, such as those specific to an organism (e.g. HuPho).