The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Do results of the T-SPOT.TB interferon-gamma release assay change after treatment of tuberculosis?

BACKGROUND: Interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) production by lymphocytes exposed to antigens specific of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been shown to correlate with antigen load and disease activity. AIM OF STUDY: To determine whether treatment of tuberculosis (TB) led to a decrease and/or a reversion of results of a IFN-gamma release assay (T-SPOT.TB, Oxford Immunotec, UK) and thus if T-SPOT.TB could be used to monitor response to treatment. METHODS: Qualitative and quantitative analysis (SFUs: spot-forming units) of T-SPOT.TB in HIV-negative patients with TB, during initial 2 weeks of treatment (T0), at end of treatment (TE) and 6 months later (TE+6). RESULTS: Mean SFU (SD) was 75 (58; n=62) at T0, 46 (55; n=55) at TE, and 33 (46; n=41) at TE+6; positive rate was 98%, 93% and 98%, respectively. SFUs (paired samples, n=36) decreased significantly between T0 and TE; 2 reversions occurred between T0 and TE (6%), but none between TE and TE+6. Of 6 patients (17%) with an increase in SFUs between T0 and TE, 5 had a favourable outcome at TE and TE+6. CONCLUSION: Decrease in SFUs under treatment suggests a relationship with antigen load; however, persisting high SFUs were not predictive of unfavourable outcome and test reversion was rare