An adverse drug reaction (ADR) often results from interaction of a drug or its metabolites with specific protein targets important in normal cellular function. Knowledge about these targets is both important in facilitating the study of the mechanisms of ADRs and in new drug discovery. It is also useful in the development and testing of rational drug design and safety evaluation tools. The Drug Adverse Reaction Database (DART) is intended to provide comprehensive information about adverse effect targets of drugs described in the literature. Moreover, proteins involved in adverse effect targets of chemicals not yet confirmed as ADR targets are also included as potential targets. This database gives physiological function of each target, binding drugs/agonists/antagonists/activators/inhibitors, IC(50) values of the inhibitors, corresponding adverse effects, and type of ADR induced by drug binding to a target. Cross-links to other databases are also introduced to facilitate the access of information about the sequence, 3-dimensional structure, function, and nomenclature of each target along with drug/ligand binding properties, and related literature. The database currently contains entries for 147 ADR targets and 89 potential targets. A total of 187 adverse reaction conditions, 257 drugs, and 1080 ligands known to bind to each of these targets are also currently described. Each entry can be retrieved through multiple search methods including target name, target physiological function, adverse effect, ligand name, and biological pathways. A special page is provided for contribution of new or additional information. This database can be accessed at http://xin.cz3.nus.edu.sg/group/drt/dart.asp.
