PIG - The pathogen interaction gateway

Abstract

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) play a vital role in initiating infection in a number of pathogens. Identifying which interactions allow a pathogen to infect its host can help us to understand methods of pathogenesis and provide potential targets for therapeutics. Public resources for studying host-pathogen systems, in particular PPIs, are scarce. To facilitate the study of host-pathogen PPIs, we have collected and integrated host-pathogen PPI (HP-PPI) data from a number of public resources to create the Pathogen Interaction Gateway (PIG). PIG provides a text based search and a BLAST interface for searching the HP-PPI data. Each entry in PIG includes information such as the functional annotations and the domains present in the interacting proteins. PIG provides links to external databases to allow for easy navigation among the various websites. Additionally, PIG includes a tool for visualizing a single HP-PPI network or two HP-PPI networks. PIG can be accessed at http://pig.vbi.vt.edu. © 2008 The Author(s).