PHI-base: the pathogen-host interactions database.

The pathogen-host interactions database (PHI-base) is available at www.phi-base.org. PHI-base contains expertly curated molecular and biological information on genes proven to affect the outcome of pathogen-host interactions reported in peer reviewed research articles. PHI-base also curates literature describing specific gene alterations that did not affect the disease interaction phenotype, in order to provide complete datasets for comparative purposes. Viruses are not included, due to their extensive coverage in other databases. In this article, we describe the increased data content of PHI-base, plus new database features and further integration with complementary databases. The release of PHI-base version 4.8 (September 2019) contains 3454 manually curated references, and provides information on 6780 genes from 268 pathogens, tested on 210 hosts in 13,801 interactions. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic pathogens are represented in almost equal numbers. Host species consist of approximately 60% plants (split 50:50 between cereal and non-cereal plants), and 40% other species of medical and/or environmental importance. The information available on pathogen effectors has risen by more than a third, and the entries for pathogens that infect crop species of global importance has dramatically increased in this release. We also briefly describe the future direction of the PHI-base project, and some existing problems with the PHI-base curation process

Educational Preparation for Chemotherapy Administration: A Survey of Queensland Nurses

Nurses caring for patients receiving chemotherapy require specialised knowledge and skills in order to ensure safety for both the patient and nurse. However, there is currently no agreed educational standard for nurses working in chemotherapy settings. The purpose of this study was to identify the educational level of nurses working in chemotherapy settings in Queensland, and to describe nurses’ opinions of educational requirements for this role. A questionnaire was distributed to all 454 financial members of the Queensland Cancer Fund’s Oncology Nurses’ Group. A total of 128 (28%) nurses responded, with over 60% of these respondents being from regional and remote areas of Queensland. While the majority of nurses involved in administration of chemotherapy had received some education for this role, findings suggest there is considerable variation in the level and type of educational preparation for nurses working in chemotherapy settings in Queensland. Moreover, nurses identified many barriers to acquiring chemotherapy education, with the majority of respondents supporting the need for standardising education programmes related to chemotherapy administration and safe handling across the state

PHI-base in 2022: a multi-species phenotype database for Pathogen-Host Interactions.

Since 2005, the Pathogen-Host Interactions Database (PHI-base) has manually curated experimentally verified pathogenicity, virulence and effector genes from fungal, bacterial and protist pathogens, which infect animal, plant, fish, insect and/or fungal hosts. PHI-base (www.phi-base.org) is devoted to the identification and presentation of phenotype information on pathogenicity and effector genes and their host interactions. Specific gene alterations that did not alter the in host interaction phenotype are also presented. PHI-base is invaluable for comparative analyses and for the discovery of candidate targets in medically and agronomically important species for intervention. Version 4.12 (September 2021) contains 4387 references, and provides information on 8411 genes from 279 pathogens, tested on 228 hosts in 18, 190 interactions. This provides a 24% increase in gene content since Version 4.8 (September 2019). Bacterial and fungal pathogens represent the majority of the interaction data, with a 54:46 split of entries, whilst protists, protozoa, nematodes and insects represent 3.6% of entries. Host species consist of approximately 54% plants and 46% others of medical, veterinary and/or environmental importance. PHI-base data is disseminated to UniProtKB, FungiDB and Ensembl Genomes. PHI-base will migrate to a new gene-centric version (version 5.0) in early 2022. This major development is briefly described