Members of the Aging Atlas Consortium provide details on its database, which brings together RNA-sequencing, single-cell RNA-sequencing, chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing, protein-protein interaction, and pharmacogenomic profiles focused on "geroprotective" compounds from mouse, fruit fly, yeast, and Caenorhabditis elegans worm models. "The Aging Atlas database aims to provide a wide range of life science researchers with valuable resources that allow access to a large-scale of gene expression and regulation datasets created by various high-throughput omics technology," they write, noting that the online resource "provides user-friendly functionalities to explore age-related changes in gene expression, as well as raw data download services."
An international team led by investigators in Germany presents a publicly available database containing human metagenome-related metadata. The HumanMetagenomeDB (HMgDB) is designed to house standardized, curated metadata generated from metagenomic studies, the researchers note, and currently contains hundreds of "meta-attributes" accompanying almost 70,000 metagenomes spanning nine body sites sampled for studies on dozens of conditions assessed in 58 countries. "Taken together, our database improves harmonization of metadata ontologies of human metagenome and facilitates simple querying, interpretation, and simple access to underlying data across distinct studies," they conclude.
Finally, German researchers describe the latest iteration of an online drug repositioning resource called Promiscuous 2.0. The site encompasses drug-target interactions, side effects, and other insights on roughly one million small molecules, while providing structural similarity and other clues for applying available compounds to new treatment settings. "During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, drug repositioning has gained widespread attention as a fast opportunity to find potential treatments against the newly emerging disease," the authors note. "In order to expand this field to researchers with varying levels of experience, we made an effort to open it to all users … by significantly improving the entry-level user experience."