- Course overview
- Search within this course
- Why do we need a pathway database?
- What is Reactome?
- When to use Reactome
- Who is Reactome for?
- Navigating Reactome
- Understanding the Pathway Browser
- Analysing data
- Programmatic access
- Contributing to Reactome
- Summary
- Try it yourself!
- Your feedback
- Get help and support on Reactome
All materials are free cultural works licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, except where further licensing details are provided.
When to use Reactome
Reactome is an extremely useful starting point to:
- Understand comprehensive molecular details of a pathway based on available literature
- Know how various proteins and small molecules interact in vivo to achieve biological functions
- Learn crosstalk (shared proteins and reactions) between different pathways
Researchers with experimental data can benefit from the many analysis tools in Reactome. For example, the following types of empirical data can be used:
- Qualitative: induced or suppressed genes and proteins
- Quantitative: omics data involving expression levels, concentrations or frequencies
More information on the analysis tools can be found in the Reactome: Tools for analysis of biological pathways course.
When not to use Reactome
- Reactome is not a database of protein-protein interactions but includes tools that can make use of these data. For a dedicated protein-protein interaction database, we recommend using IntAct. You may find our course IntAct: Quick tour useful.
Reactome pathways can be extended using external resources but Reactome is not intended as a viewer for large interaction networks. If this is your goal, you may wish to use a visualisation tool such as Cytoscape.