Metabolomics and Small Molecule Resources at the EBI

The EBI now hosts several small molecule resources to collate and annotate the data related to bioactive entites now being generated by many biomedical, agricultural and horticultural disciplines. The Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) is a dictionary of molecular entities focused on ‘small’ chemical compounds. MetaboLights is a database for Metabolomics experiments and derived information. The database is cross-species, cross-technique and covers metabolite structures and their reference spectra as well as their biological roles, locations and concentrations, and experimental data from metabolic experiments. Finally ChEMBL is an open large-scale bioactivity database enabling the identification of suitable chemical tools for modulating a specific target. The application of these resources to plant and animal biology will be discussed.