Case study: Visualization and analysis of mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways in the literature

Abstract

Data sets of up to 3000 journal abstracts from MEDLINE literature on the keyword combination `MAPK pathway' and `human' are visualized and analyzed for mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. We have tightly coupled exploratory visualization with information extraction for interactive navigation through scattered information sources, in search of useful facts on MAPK by frequency-based filtering and amplification. Unlike direct database visualization that operates on curated data sets, literature visualization has the advantages of manipulating data sets of a massive scale with a lot less manpower and effectively responding to the fast cycles of the developments in the field.