Database Commons

a catalog of worldwide biological databases

BindingDB, www.bindingdb.org, is a publicly accessible database of experimental protein-small molecule interaction data. Its collection of over a million data entries derives primarily from scientific articles and, increasingly, US patents. BindingDB provides many ways to browse and search for data of interest, including an advanced search tool, which can cross searches of multiple query types, including text, chemical structure, protein sequence and numerical affinities. The PDB and PubMed provide links to data in BindingDB, and vice versa; and BindingDB provides links to pathway information, the ZINC catalog of available compounds, and other resources. The BindingDB website offers specialized tools that take advantage of its large data collection, including ones to generate hypotheses for the protein targets bound by a bioactive compound, and for the compounds bound by a new protein of known sequence; and virtual compound screening by maximal chemical similarity, binary kernel discrimination, and support vector machine methods. Specialized data sets are also available, such as binding data for hundreds of congeneric series of ligands, drawn from BindingDB and organized for use in validating drug design methods. BindingDB offers several forms of programmatic access, and comes with extensive background material and documentation. Here, we provide the first update of BindingDB since 2007, focusing on new and unique features and highlighting directions of importance to the field as a whole. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

This paper presents an initial description of the BindingDB, a public web-accessible database of measured binding affinities for various molecular types (http://www.bindingdb.org). The BindingDB allows queries based upon a range of criteria, including chemical similarity or substructure, sequence homology, numerical criteria (e.g. delta G(o) < 5 kcal/mol) and reactant names (e.g. "lysozyme"). Principles of Human-Computer Interactions are being employed in creating the query interface and user-feedback is being solicited. The data specification includes significant experimental detail. A full dictionary has been created for isothermal titration calorimetry data in consultation with experimentalists and data dictionaries for enzyme-inhibition and other measurement techniques are being developed. Currently, the BindingDB contains several data sets of broad interest, such as antigen-antibody binding and cyclodextrin/small molecule binding. However, it is anticipated that online deposition by experimentalists will ultimately contribute to a larger flow of data. We are actively developing software and file specifications to facilitate such deposition.