BACKGROUND: Biological signaling pathways that govern cellular physiology form 
an intricate web of tightly regulated interlocking processes. Data on these 
regulatory networks are accumulating at an unprecedented pace. The assimilation, 
visualization and interpretation of these data have become a major challenge in 
biological research, and once met, will greatly boost our ability to understand 
cell functioning on a systems level.
RESULTS: To cope with this challenge, we are developing the SPIKE knowledge-base 
of signaling pathways. SPIKE contains three main software components: 1) A 
database (DB) of biological signaling pathways. Carefully curated information 
from the literature and data from large public sources constitute distinct tiers 
of the DB. 2) A visualization package that allows interactive graphic 
representations of regulatory interactions stored in the DB and superposition of 
functional genomic and proteomic data on the maps. 3) An algorithmic inference 
engine that analyzes the networks for novel functional interplays between 
network components.SPIKE is designed and implemented as a community tool and 
therefore provides a user-friendly interface that allows registered users to 
upload data to SPIKE DB. Our vision is that the DB will be populated by a 
distributed and highly collaborative effort undertaken by multiple groups in the 
research community, where each group contributes data in its field of expertise.
CONCLUSION: The integrated capabilities of SPIKE make it a powerful platform for 
the analysis of signaling networks and the integration of knowledge on such 
networks with omics data.