Introducing dAUTObase: a first step towards the global scale geoepidemiology of autoimmune syndromes and diseases

• Published in: Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 581 - 586
• Main Authors: Gkantouna, Vassiliki A, Kambouris, Manousos E, Viennas, Emmanouil S, Ioannou, Zafeiria-Marina, Paraskevas, Michael, Lagoumintzis, George, Zagoriti, Zoi, Patrinos, George P, Tzimas, Giannis E, Poulas, Konstantinos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 15.02.2015
• Subjects: Autoimmune Diseases - epidemiology; Autoimmune Diseases - genetics; Computational Biology - methods; Databases, Genetic; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 - epidemiology; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 - genetics; Ethnic Groups - genetics; Female; Genetics, Population - methods; Genome, Human; Global Health; Humans; Male; Software; Syndrome
• ISSN: 1367-4803; 1367-4811
• DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btu690

An autoimmune disorder occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys its own healthy body tissues. The initiation of a geoepidemiological database, for recording autoimmune incidents with a focus to clinical manifestations, demographic parameters and geographic background is crucial to detect correlations. The dAUTObase collects an ever increasing number of publications-currently counting 435-on autoimmune diseases' frequencies in various populations and ethnic groups. The respective data have been hosted by a web application developed for the task. It uses three data visualization tools: the PivotViewer, the Disease Treemap and the Disease World Map, to assist the effective data querying. The dAUTObase 2.0 version (www.biodata.gr/dautobase) needs no registration for querying, but data entry and modification is reserved for registered users (curators-administrators). kpoulas@upatras.gr or tzimas@cti.gr.