dbCerEx: A Web-Based Database for the Analysis of Cervical Cancer Transcriptomes

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancers are ranked the second-most hazardous ailments among women worldwide. In the past two decades, microarray technologies have been applied to study genes involved in malignancy progress. However, in most of the published microarray studies, only a few genes were reported leaving rather a large amount of data unused. Also, RNA-Seq data has become more standard for transcriptome analysis and is widely applied in cancer studies. There is a growing demand for a tool to help the experimental researchers who are keen to explore cervical cancer gene therapy, but lack computer expertise to access and analyze the high throughput gene expression data. DESCRIPTION: The dbCerEx database is designed to retrieve and process gene expression data from cervical cancer samples. It includes the genome wide expression profiles of cervical cancer samples, as well as a web utility to cluster genes with similar expression patterns. This feature will help researchers conduct further research to uncover novel gene functions. CONCLUSION: The dbCerEx database is freely available for non-commercial use at http://128.135.207.10/dbCerEx/, and will be updated and integrated with more features as needed.