GAD and GADview: a genomic view of common human disease

¹Kevin G Becker, ¹Yonqing Zhang, ¹Narmada Shenoy, ²Kayla E Smith, ²Donna Karolchik, ²Fan Hsu, ³S Alex Wang
¹National Institute on Aging/NIH, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, ²University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, United States of America, ³Center for Information Technology/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

The Genetic Association Database (GAD) is a web-based NIH supported public repository of information from published human disease based genetic association studies. GAD archives human disease association studies of all kinds with an emphasis on non-mendelian common disease. It currently contains approximately 30,000 disease and gene specific records and is the largest database of medically relevant polymorphisms currently available. In addition, GAD contains disease phenotype descriptions, MESH ontology annotation, allelic descriptions, and other molecular annotation as well as links to other data sources such as alternative splicing and copy number variation. The University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) Genome Browser database is one of the most widely used genome browser systems for the integration of different collections of related annotations. In this project called GADview, we have incorporated the Genetic Association Database annotation into the UCSC Genome Browser database thereby developing a genome display of large-scale information of common human diseases and phenotypes. The annotation renders information on diseases associated with specific human genes. It is displayed in the browser as a track, in the newly created "Phenotype and Disease Associations" section, aligned with the human genomic sequence. GADview allows a dynamic view of large-scale complex human disease information positioned on the primary human genomic sequence in relation to other features and tracks of the UCSC browser such as gene annotation, mRNA/EST, alternative splicing, expression and regulation elements, and comparative genomics. GADview allows comparative analysis to the genomic sequence of many model organisms found in the UCSC browser system. GAD: http://geneticassociationdb.nih.gov/

This project is funded by the Intramural Program of the National Institute on Aging/NIH. The UCSC Genome Browser database project is funded by grants from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).