NUTRIGENEINTERACT: AN INTERACTIVE TOOL FOR NUTRIGENOMICS

Abstract

Post-human genome disclosure observes the emergence of ‘Nutigenomics’ as one of the exciting scientific advancement influencing mankind around the world. Nutrition has the major impact in defining the cause-response interaction between nutrient and human health. Each person differs from the next by an average of over 3 million genetic variations in their DNA. This genetic diversity is responsible for many of the inter individual differences in food preferences, nutritional needs, and dietary responses between humans. The field of nutrigenetics aims to utilize this type of genetic information in order to personalize diets for optimal health. Studies have demonstrated that network approaches helps when applied to integrate biological information can provide novel insights and pave the way for understanding and curing complex diseases. Here we, therefore, propose a new platform NutriGeneInteract that integrate different data and allow the creation of heterogeneous networks of gene, protein, disease and nutrition interaction levels. NutriGeneInteract also provides a user-friendly interface to integrate, visualize and analyse genome-scale biological networks for Nutrition related diseases ultimately allowing the research community to connect distinct spots in space to solve the puzzle of Nutritional effects on genetics. NutriGeneInteract is available online at http://genomeinformatics.dtu.ac.in/NutriGeneInteract/Index.html.