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Published on: March 14, 2019
Targeted journal curation as a method to improve data currency at the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database
Allan Peter Davis1, Robin J Johnson, Kelley Lennon-Hopkins
1Department of Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7617, USA. apdavis3@ncsu.edu
Database : the Journal of Biological Databases and Curation
|December 11, 2012
Summary
The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) enhanced its data curation by adding a journal-centric approach to its existing chemical-centric method. This new strategy improves data currency and ensures more balanced content on environmental chemical impacts on human health.
Area of Science:
- Toxicology
- Bioinformatics
- Environmental Health
Background:
- The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) curates chemical-gene, chemical-disease, and gene-disease interactions from scientific literature.
- CTD traditionally uses a chemical-centric approach for article selection, which can lead to data currency issues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To address data currency challenges, CTD developed and evaluated a complementary journal-centric curation approach.
- To improve the timeliness and balance of curated toxicological data.
Main Methods:
- Identified priority journals based on specific criteria.
- Biocurators reviewed articles from selected journals over a defined period (2009-2011).
- Analyzed curation metrics, including data currency and research topic distribution.
Main Results:
- A journal-centric approach was successfully implemented, complementing the existing chemical-centric method.
- 1252 articles yielded 52,752 curated interactions.
- This method is expected to build more even content and reflect emerging environmental health research areas.
Conclusions:
- The journal-centric approach enhances CTD's ability to maintain current and comprehensive toxicological data.
- This strategy improves data currency and balances the representation of chemicals, genes, and diseases.
- It provides insights into developing areas within environmental health research.
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