PhenClust, a standalone tool for identifying trends within sets of biological phenotypes using semantic similarity and the Unified Medical Language System metathesaurus.

OBJECTIVES: We sought to cluster biological phenotypes using semantic similarity and create an easy-to-install, stable, and reproducible tool. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We generated Phenotype Clustering (PhenClust)-a novel application of semantic similarity for interpreting biological phenotype associations-using the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) metathesaurus, demonstrated the tool's application, and developed Docker containers with stable installations of two UMLS versions. RESULTS: PhenClust identified disease clusters for drug network-associated phenotypes and a meta-analysis of drug target candidates. The Dockerized containers eliminated the requirement that the user install the UMLS metathesaurus. DISCUSSION: Clustering phenotypes summarized all phenotypes associated with a drug network and two drug candidates. Docker containers can support dissemination and reproducibility of tools that are otherwise limited due to insufficient software support. CONCLUSION: PhenClust can improve interpretation of high-throughput biological analyses where many phenotypes are associated with a query and the Dockerized PhenClust achieved our objective of decreasing installation complexity.

PathFXweb: a web application for identifying drug safety and efficacy phenotypes.

SUMMARY: Limited efficacy and intolerable safety limit therapeutic development and identification of potential liabilities earlier in development could significantly improve this process. Computational approaches which aggregate data from multiple sources and consider the drug's pathways effects could add to identification of these liabilities earlier. Such computational methods must be accessible to a variety of users beyond computational scientists, especially regulators and industry scientists, in order to impact the therapeutic development process. We have previously developed and published PathFX, an algorithm for identifying drug networks and phenotypes for understanding drug associations to safety and efficacy. Here we present a streamlined and easy-to-use PathFX web application that allows users to search for drug networks and associated phenotypes. We have also added visualization, and phenotype clustering to improve functionality and interpretability of PathFXweb. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: https://www.pathfxweb.net/. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.