Hmrbase2: A comprehensive database of hormones and their receptors

Background and objectiveHormones are essential for cell communication and hence regulate various physiological processes. The discrepancies in the hormones or their receptors can break this communication and cause major endocrinological disorders. It is, therefore, indispensable for the therapeutics and diagnostics of hormonal diseases. MethodsWe collected widespread information on peptide and non-peptide hormones and hormone receptors. The information was collected from HMDB, UniProt, HORDB, ENDONET, PubChem and literature. ResultsHmrbase2 is an updated version of Hmrbase. The current version contains a total of 12056 entries which is more than twice the entries in the previous version. These include 7406, 753, and 3897 entries for peptide hormones, non-peptide hormones and hormone receptors, respectively, from 803 organisms compared to the 562 organisms in the previous version. The database also hosts 5662 hormone receptor pairs. The source organism, function, and subcellular location are provided for peptide hormones and receptors and properties like melting point; water solubility is provided for non-peptide hormones. Besides browsing and keyword search, an advanced search option has also been provided. Additionally, a similarity search module has been incorporated, enabling users to run similarity searches against peptide hormone sequences using BLAST and Smith-Waterman. ConclusionsTo make the database accessible to various users, we designed a user-friendly, responsive website that can be easily used on smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. The updated database version, Hmrbase2, offers improved data content compared to the previous version. Homebase 2.0 is freely available at https://webs.iiitd.edu.in/raghava/hmrbase2.