Molecular landscape of kidney allograft tissues data integration portal (NephroDIP): a curated database to improve integration of high-throughput kidney transplant datasets.

Introduction: Kidney transplantation is the optimal treatment for end-stage kidney disease; however, premature allograft loss remains a serious issue. While many high-throughput omics studies have analyzed patient allograft biospecimens, integration of these datasets is challenging, which represents a considerable barrier to advancing our understanding of the mechanisms of allograft loss. Methods: To facilitate integration, we have created a curated database containing all open-access high-throughput datasets from human kidney transplant studies, termed NephroDIP (Nephrology Data Integration Portal). PubMed was searched for high-throughput transcriptomic, proteomic, single nucleotide variant, metabolomic, and epigenomic studies in kidney transplantation, which yielded 9,964 studies. Results: From these, 134 studies with available data detailing 260 comparisons and 83,262 molecules were included in NephroDIP v1.0. To illustrate the capabilities of NephroDIP, we have used the database to identify common gene, protein, and microRNA networks that are disrupted in patients with chronic antibody-mediated rejection, the most important cause of late allograft loss. We have also explored the role of an immunomodulatory protein galectin-1 (LGALS1), along with its interactors and transcriptional regulators, in kidney allograft injury. We highlight the pathways enriched among LGALS1 interactors and transcriptional regulators in kidney fibrosis and during immunosuppression. Discussion: NephroDIP is an open access data portal that facilitates data visualization and will help provide new insights into existing kidney transplant data through integration of distinct studies and modules (https://ophid.utoronto.ca/NephroDIP).