BACKGROUND: With the continued growth in the volume both of experimental G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) data and of the related peer-reviewed literature, the ability of GPCR researchers to keep up-to-date is becoming increasingly curtailed. RESULTS: We present work that integrates the biological data and annotations in the GPCR information system (GPCRDB) with next-generation methods for intelligently exploring, visualising and interacting with the scientific articles used to disseminate them. This solution automatically retrieves relevant information from GPCRDB and displays it both within and as an adjunct to an article. CONCLUSIONS: This approach allows researchers to extract more knowledge more swiftly from literature. Importantly, it allows reinterpretation of data in articles published before GPCR structure data became widely available, thereby rescuing these valuable data from long-dormant sources.

SUMMARY: Rapid expansion of available data about G Protein Coupled Receptor (GPCR) dimers/oligomers over the past few years requires an effective system to organize this information electronically. Based on an ontology derived from a community dialog involving colleagues using experimental and computational methodologies, we developed the GPCR-Oligomerization Knowledge Base (GPCR-OKB). GPCR-OKB is a system that supports browsing and searching for GPCR oligomer data. Such data were manually derived from the literature. While focused on GPCR oligomers, GPCR-OKB is seamlessly connected to GPCRDB, facilitating the correlation of information about GPCR protomers and oligomers. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The GPCR-OKB web application is freely available at http://www.gpcr-okb.org