AMTDB: A comprehensive database of autophagic modulators for anti-tumor drug discovery

Abstract

Autophagy, originally described as a mechanism for intracellular waste disposal and recovery, has been becoming a crucial biological process closely related to many types of human tumors, including breast cancer, osteosarcoma, glioma, etc., suggesting that intervention of autophagy is a promising therapeutic strategy for cancer drug development. Therefore, a high-quality database is crucial for unraveling the complicated relationship between autophagy and human cancers, elucidating the crosstalk between the key autophagic pathways, and autophagic modulators with their remarkable antitumor activities. To achieve this goal, a comprehensive database of autophagic modulators (AMTDB) was developed. AMTDB focuses on 153 cancer types, 1,153 autophagic regulators, 860 targets, and 2,046 mechanisms/signaling pathways. In addition, a variety of classification methods, advanced retrieval, and target prediction functions are provided exclusively to cater to the different demands of users. Collectively, AMTDB is expected to serve as a powerful online resource to provide a new clue for the discovery of more candidate cancer drugs.