RAMP: A Bioinformatics Framework for Researching Imaging Agents through Molecular Pathways

Abstract

Signaling pathways are the fundamental grammar of cellular communication, yet there are few frameworks available to connect signaling pathways and molecular imaging probes. Such a framework would aid in the design and selection of imaging probes to measure specific signaling pathways. Additionally, it would illuminate which pathways are being interrogated by specific probes. RAMP (Researching imaging Agents through Molecular Pathways) is an extensible bioinformatics framework and search tool for relating signaling pathways and imaging probes based on a controlled vocabulary of the imaging targets. RAMP currently contains signaling pathway data from MetaCore, KEGG, and the Gene Ontology project; imaging probe data from the Molecular Imaging and Contrast Agent Database (MICAD); and tissue protein expression data from The Human Protein Atlas. The RAMP search tool is available at http://www.rampsearch.com. Examples are presented to demonstrate the utility of RAMP for pathway-based searching of molecular imaging probes