Prion, 2019. 13, 197-198, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19336896.2019.1689789

THERPA v2: An Update of a small molecule database related to prion protein regulation and prion disease progression

Sol Moe Lee, Sung Soon Kim;Heebal Kim; Su Yeon Kim

Abstract

Prion diseases are rare, rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disorders that affect mammalian species. Abnormal accumulation of infectious form of the prion protein (PrPSc) in the brain causes prion disease. Various small molecules have been used to inhibit and treat this disease. We built a repository of therapeutic molecules associated with prion protein and prion diseases (THERPA) to allow users to easily browse information describing various small molecules in publicly available articles. THERPA is an open-access database containing data regarding small molecules related to prion protein and prion diseases, which is aimed at allowing researchers to easily explore and analyse data of interest. Here, we describe the relocation of the webpage and THERPA database updates. The THERPA repository has been relocated to the Korea National Institute of Health website for stable maintenance (www.nih.go.kr/therpa). The e-Government Standard Framework (www.egovframe.go.kr) was used to create the current website, which is compatible with the mobile web environment. THERPA has been expanded to cover 144 small molecules and their 353 relationships. A table template in the Main table in the current version was created using SBGRID (https://sbgrid.co.kr). To perform a search, users can specify a category by selecting one search category and entering a search text or keyword, after which the users click on the SEARCH button to execute the search. Users can download EXCEL files by clicking on the green button labelled, ‘export (.xlsx)’ at the upper left of the table. The materials for experiments and treemap pages were also updated followed by additionally curated small molecules and their relations. The manually curated THERPA will be updated regularly with new datasets to provide more valuable resources regarding small molecules and their role in prion protein regulation and in managing prion diseases. The repository would facilitate meta-analysis and would be useful for understanding disease mechanisms and developing therapeutic strategies.

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19336896.2019.1689789
• ISBN or ISSN: 1933-6896

• 본 연구는 질병관리본부 연구개발과제연구비를 지원받아 수행되었습니다.
• This research was supported by a fund by Research of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.