The etiology of most chronic diseases involves interactions between environmental factors and genes that modulate important physiological processes. This assumption is supported by the many complex diseases caused by reversible behaviors or avoidable exposures, and by the relatively rare number of diseases attributed to single gene mutations. Environmental factors are implicated in many common conditions such as asthma, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, immune deficiency disorders, and Parkinson’s disease; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying these correlations are not well understood.
CTD includes data from diverse organisms to present cross-species comparisons of chemical-gene/protein interactions and molecular sequences to illuminate molecular mechanisms underlying toxicity and variable susceptibility. These interactions will also provide insights into complex chemical-gene and protein interaction networks.
In some areas, CTD is still under development:
- Curation, data integration and web site improvements are in progress.
- Some data sets may be out of date temporarily. See our data integration status for more information.
CTD is a community-supported public resource. It is being developed at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL), a Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Science (MFBS) Center of the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).