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Weimin Zhu

Publications and source records attributed to Weimin Zhu.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database.

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl/), maintained at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), incorporates, organizes and distributes nucleotide sequences from public sources. The database is a part of an international collaboration with DDBJ (Japan) and GenBank (USA). Data are exchanged between the collaborating databases on a daily basis to achieve optimal synchrony. The web-based tool, Webin, is the preferred system for individual submission of nucleotide sequences, including Third Party Annotation (TPA) and alignment data. Automatic submission procedures are used for submission of data from large-scale genome sequencing centres and from the European Patent Office. Database releases are produced quarterly. The latest data collection can be accessed via FTP, email and WWW interfaces. The EBI's Sequence Retrieval System (SRS) integrates and links the main nucleotide and protein databases as well as many other specialist molecular biology databases. For sequence similarity searching, a variety of tools (e.g. FASTA and BLAST) are available that allow external users to compare their own sequences against the data in the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database, the complete genomic component subsection of the database, the WGS data sets and other databases. All available resources can be accessed via the EBI home page at http://www.ebi.ac.uk.

Animals↗

Common interchange standards for proteomics data: Public availability of tools and schema.

The Proteomics Standards Initiative (PSI) aims to define community standards for data representation in proteomics and to facilitate data comparision, exchange and verification. To this end, a Level 1 Molecular Interaction XML data exchange format has been developed which has been accepted for publication and is freely available at the PSI website (http.//psidev.sf.net/). Several major protein interaction databases are already making data available in this format. A draft XML interchange format for mass spectrometry data has been written and is currently undergoing evaluation whilst work is ongoing to develop a proteomics data integration model, MIAPE.

Computational Biology↗

The HUPO PSI's molecular interaction format--a community standard for the representation of protein interaction data.

A major goal of proteomics is the complete description of the protein interaction network underlying cell physiology. A large number of small scale and, more recently, large-scale experiments have contributed to expanding our understanding of the nature of the interaction network. However, the necessary data integration across experiments is currently hampered by the fragmentation of publicly available protein interaction data, which exists in different formats in databases, on authors' websites or sometimes only in print publications. Here, we propose a community standard data model for the representation and exchange of protein interaction data. This data model has been jointly developed by members of the Proteomics Standards Initiative (PSI), a work group of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO), and is supported by major protein interaction data providers, in particular the Biomolecular Interaction Network Database (BIND), Cellzome (Heidelberg, Germany), the Database of Interacting Proteins (DIP), Dana Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, MA, USA), the Human Protein Reference Database (HPRD), Hybrigenics (Paris, France), the European Bioinformatics Institute's (EMBL-EBI, Hinxton, UK) IntAct, the Molecular Interactions (MINT, Rome, Italy) database, the Protein-Protein Interaction Database (PPID, Edinburgh, UK) and the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany).

Database Management Systems↗

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with solid-phase microextraction method for determination of methyl salicylate and other volatile compounds in leaves of Lycopersicon esculentum.

Methyl salicylate (MeSA) in many plants is a important signaling compound, which plays an important role in a pathogen-induced defense response. In this paper, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) with headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) was developed for determination of MeSA and other volatile compounds in leaves of a tomato plant (Lycopersicon esculentum). Tomato leaves were ground under liquid nitrogen and sampled by HS-SPME, with a 100 microm polydimethylsiloxane fiber, and finally analyzed by GC-MS. Eighteen compounds in the leaves of tomato plant infested by tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) were separated and identified, among them MeSA, which was quantitatively analyzed by the standard addition method. MeSA concentrations higher than 2.0 microg g(-1) fresh weight accumulated in leaves of TMV-infested tomato plant as the defense response to TMV. A similar concentration of MeSA in the leaves of MeSA-treated tomato plant was also found. No MeSA in leaves of control tomato plant was detected. These findings suggest that MeSA might be a signaling compound in the tomato plant response to TMV. The present method for determination of MeSA required only simple sample preparation and no organic solvent, and provided an excellent relative standard deviation of less than 5.0% and a low detection limit of 10 ng g(-1) fresh weight for MeSA. These results show that GC-MS-HS-SPME is a simple, rapid and sensitive method for determination of MeSA and other plant-signaling compounds in plant tissues.

Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry↗

Further advances in the development of a data interchange standard for proteomics data.

The Protein Standards Initiative (PSI) aims to define community standards for data representation in proteomics and to facilitate data comparison, exchange and verification. Significant progress was made in advancing the design and implementation of a draft standard for exchanging experimental data from proteomics experiments involving mass spectrometry at the 51st Annual Conference of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. In collaboration with the American Society for Tests and Measurements, the PSI propose to publish this first draft at the forthcoming HUPO 2nd World Congress in Montreal, 8-11 October 2003.

Computational Biology↗

Processing of serum proteins underlies the mass spectral fingerprinting of myocardial infarction.

The MALDI-TOF spectra of peptides from the sera of normal and myocardial infarction patients produced patterns that provided an accurate diagnostic of MI. In myocardial infarction, the spectral pattern originated from the cleavage of complement C3 alpha chain to release the C3f peptide and cleavage of fibrinogen to release peptide A. The fibrinogen peptide A and complement C3f peptide were in turn progressively truncated by aminopeptidases to produce two families of fragments that formed the characteristic spectral pattern of MI. Time course and inhibitor studies demonstrated that the peptide patterns in the serum reflect the balance of disease-specific-protease and aminopeptidase activity ex vivo.

Amino Acid Sequence↗