This script accepted a set of genes and/or SNP IDs and looked for for other genes either close to them or related to them within a Protein-Protein Interaction network.

This script accepted one or more of the following as input:

• a list of genes, specified as NCBI gene names (like JAK3 or STAT3), or using NCBI GID numbers (like 3718 or 6774),

• a set of NCBI SNP IDs that directly identify a gene of interest, and/or

• a set of NCBI SNP IDs that identify regions of a chromosome possibly containing genes of interest.

The local instance of dbSNP was used to find genes directly associated with a user-specified SNP and within a (user-specified) base pair distance around any of the user-submitted SNPs. These "discovered" genes were then added to the list of genes to be expanded.

A local instance of the Rual-Stelzl Protein-Protein Interaction Network was used to find genes "connected" (by a user-specified hop count) to the user-specified genes, which could also be added to the list of genes to be expanded.

Finally, genes added to the search set could (optionally) be required to possess GO Cellular Component annotations matching the annotations of at least one input or SNP-related gene.

A mock up of the interface is shown here.

A mock up of a sample response is shown here.