VitiVar: A locus specific database of vitiligo associated genes and variations

Abstract Vitiligois the most common skin pigmentationdisorder which affects around 1% of the population worldwide. The disease has complex pathogenesis and is of multifactorial etiology, that finally culminates in patchy depigmentationof skin. Genetic contribution to the disease is well studied, however the information about multiple associated genes and contributing variations are scattered across the literature. To address this complex disorder affecting the skin, we systematically cataloged the genes and variations by creating a Locus Specific Database for vitiligocalled, “VitiVar”. This comprehensive resource houses manually curated 322 genes and 254 variations, from 202 articles indexed in PubMed. We applied an integrative approach to stratify genes and variations to facilitate dissection of vitiligopathogenesis by layering it with expression status in specific constituent cell types of skin and in-house vitiligoexpression data. Finally, we were able to demonstrate the utility of VitiVar by generating a vitiligo interactomeusing GeneMANIA and overlaying the vitiligoand cell type specific information. This interaction networkyielded 20 new genes (apart from 322 VitiVar genes) of which we were able to prioritize IFI27 and IFI6 for further validation. This, thereby makes VitiVar a comprehensive integrative platformin unravelling disease biology by providing meaningful leads for functional interrogation. VitiVar is freely accessible to the research community for prioritizing and validating the candidate genes and variations ( http://vitivar.igib.res.in/ ).