Pharmacogenomics in the era of personal genomics: A quick guide to online resources and tools

Abstract

The post-HapMap era has seen a spurt in the resources available for genome analysis and their interpretation along with databases and consortiums working on personal genomes. The advent of next-generation sequencing has provided an impetus to personal genomics while at the same time giving an indirect boost to concepts such as pharmacogenomics. Modern-day pharmacogenomics (or PGx) has evolved from the mundane - highlighting variations in common genes for drugs used the most, to the correlative study of the infl uence of a single gene on multiple drugs or combinatorial drugs on other drugs used concomitantly and so on. The vast outburst in data has led to a simultaneous growth in the databases and consortiums working on PGx as well as curating the data generated. This review covers those online resources and tools which are instrumental to the interpretation of personal genomes and contain pharmacogenetically relevant data. Further, it has been divided into five main categories depending upon the content and utility of the resource into (1) pharmacogenomics databases, (2) variation databases, (3) tools/resources for analysing PGx data, (4) community efforts and consortia and (5) standards for data representation.