About KEGG
The KEGG database is a computer model of the biological information systems in the cell, the organism and the biosphere represented in terms of molecular interaction and reaction networks. Here the database is not a simple data repository. It is rather a highly organized structure of data and knowledge aiming to model the real world. In comparison to the AI/ML models that are generated from big data by artificial intelligence, the KEGG model is generated by human intelligence, namely by manually capturing and organizing experimental knowledge reported in selected publications.The KEGG project was initiated in 1995 under the Japanese Human Project. In the traditional view, the genome is a blueprint of life containing all necessary information that would make up an organism. In our view, however, the genome specifies only the molecular building blocks, while the cell, the basic unit of life, contains information about how molecules interact and react to form a system. What we inherit is not just the genome, but the entire cell, and there is a cellular continuity of the germline leading to the origin of life. Unless we uncover underlying information processing systems in the cell and the biosphere, including how they started and evolved, we will be unable to decipher the genome.
From this perspectives, the KEGG model has been developed by integrating molecular building blocks encoded in the genome (genetic blueprint of life) with molecular interacton and reaction networks in the cell (chemical blueprint of life).
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See also:
Kanehisa, M.; "Post-genome Informatics", Oxford University Press (2000).
for background of developing KEGG.
[Preface] [Table of Contents] |