Q: What type of information is included in MFline®?
A: MFline® summarizes experimental pharmacology data from in vitro and in vivo animal studies that delineate the chemical interactions between drugs and receptors and between enzymes and target cells, and which characterize drug actions. MFline® provides IC50, EC50, Ki, ED50, MIC90, LD50, pA2, CC50, pKb and similar values for more than 7,000 pharmacological substances currently on the market or under study and covers more than 4,200 types of pharmacological activity. For each datum (IC50 value, etc.) in MFline®, the database references basic elements of the study (pharmacological activity being studied, material in which studied, method utilized) and the source of this information (literature or congress reference), as well as relevant information on the drug studied (drug name[s], chemical name, originator and licensees, highest development phase, therapeutic group/mechanism of action and chemical structure).
Q: What are the sources of information for the data in MFline®?
A: Information is extracted from heterogeneous data sources including current literature, conferences and books. Reference coverage dates back to 1996, although selected earlier references for important drugs under study have been incorporated in MFline® as well. Pharmacological data from more than 2,000 journal articles, congresses and books are added each year.
Q: What types of pharmacological activity are covered in MFline®?
A: MFline® covers more than 4,200 types of pharmacological activity such as enzyme inhibition; receptor affinity, agonism or antagonism; antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral or antiparasitic activity; or other effects (e.g., Muscle contraction; decrease in cholesterol levels). The specific type of modulation of pharmacological effects is indicated in the description (e.g., "Beta-Lactamase, inhibition") and specific inductors of the activity are included in parentheses (e.g., "Muscle contraction (DOT-induced), inhibition") where applicable.
Q: What types of drugs are covered in MFline®?
A: MFline® covers more than 7,000 drugs currently on the market or in development. The developmental-stage drugs are among those compounds most actively investigated by the pharmaceutical industry and research institutes worldwide.
Q: Does MFline® have any special features?
A: MFline® has recently incorporated a chemical (sub)structure search function that allows users to retrieve pharmacological activity data for structurally similar compounds. This structure search function can be used in combination with text searches to facilitate understanding of structure-activity relationships and to compare activities among similar and dissimilar compounds. To search by structure, the CS ChemDrawTM v. 5.0 and CS ChemFinderTM Pro v. 5.0 software (sold separately by CambridgeSoft Corporation; URL: www.camsoft.com) must be installed on the computer where MFline® is installed.
In the data tables in MFline®, pharmacological values are presented in standardized units (i.e., in the same unit of measure, such as nM, mcg, ...) for each parameter (e.g., IC50, MIC90, ...). The MFline® software chooses the magnitude of the median value for each parameter in the table and presents all values for the same conditions to this scale. This greatly facilitates the comparison of results from various studies.
MFline®'s proprietary data mining software allows hands-on management and organization of data to facilitate the identification of trends, similarities and discrepancies among drugs sharing the same or related mechanisms of action.
Q: How is MFline® supplied?
A: The MFline® database is distributed on CD-ROM; new releases appear 6 times annually.
Q: How often is MFline® updated and what is the scope of updates?
A: MFline® is updated 6 times annually and new releases ship at the beginning of even-numbered months (February, April, June, August, October and December). New releases are full releases that include new records that have been added to the database. An average of 20,000 new records appear in each new release.
Q: What are the hardware and software requirements for running MFline®?
A: Hardware: MFline® runs on personal computers under the Windows® 95, 98 or NT (v. 3.51 or higher) platforms. A CD-ROM player and Microsoft-compatible mouse are required. A color monitor with a minimum of 256-color capability is recommended for optimum display of the information. Approximately 20 MB hard disk free space is required to install and run the program; a minimum of 16 MB RAM is required. Software: No additional software is required to search on information from the text and data fields of MFline®; for chemical structure searching, users must have the CS ChemDrawTM v. 5.0 and CS ChemFinderTM Pro v. 5.0 software (sold separately by CambridgeSoft Corporation; URL: www.camsoft.com) installed on the computer.
© 2006 Prous Science.
All rights reserved. Legal Information.
Send your comments to Webmaster.
