2009 Volume 26 Issue 5 Pages 479-483
In this study, we used a graphical representation to integrate, visualize, search, and analyze information on metabolite identifiers. By considering the links between metabolite identifiers described in the metabolite databases to be the edges between vertices in a graph, several metabolite databases can be integrated into a database without defining a new metabolite identifier code. The graphical visualization of metabolite identifier network enables us to understand the meaning of each metabolite identifier and their relationship with associated identifiers. The projection of actual metabolome data on the pathway map was also attained by using the converter function of the metabolite identifier database. We demonstrated that other metabolite-related information, such as chemical ontology and species-metabolite relationship, can be incorporated into the network, and performed an analysis of plant species-alkaloid ontology relationship.
