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Automated structure extraction and XML conversion of life science database flat files.

In the light of the increasing number of biological databases, their integration is a fundamental prerequisite for answering complex biological questions. Database integration, therefore, is an important area of research in bioinformatics. Since most of the publicly available life science databases are still exclusively exchanged by means of proprietary flat files, database integration requires parsers for very different flat file formats. Unfortunately, the development and maintenance of database specific flat file parsers is a nontrivial and time-consuming task, which takes considerable effort in large-scale integration scenarios. This paper introduces heuristically based concepts for automatic structure extraction from life science database flat files. On the basis of these concepts the FlatEx prototype is developed for the automatic conversion of flat files into XML representations.

Algorithms↗

A relational database application in support of integrated neuroscience research.

The development of relational databases has significantly improved the performance of storage, search, and retrieval functions and has made it possible for applications that perform real-time data acquisition and analysis to interact with these types of databases. The purpose of this research was to develop a user interface for interaction between a data acquisition and analysis application and a relational database using the Oracle9i system. The overall system was designed to have an indexing capability that threads into the data acquisition and analysis programs. Tables were designed and relations within the database for indexing the files and information contained within the files were established. The system provides retrieval capabilities over a broad range of media, including analog, event, and video data types. The system's ability to interact with a data capturing program at the time of the experiment to create both multimedia files as well as the meta-data entries in the relational database avoids manual entries in the database and ensures data integrity and completeness for further interaction with the data by analysis applications.

Database Management Systems↗

Integrative neuroscience: the role of a standardized database.

Most brain related databases bring together specialized information, with a growing number that include neuroimaging measures. This article outlines the potential use and insights from the first entirely standardized and centralized database, which integrates information from neuroimaging measures (EEG, event related potential (ERP), structural/functional MRI), arousal (skin conductance responses (SCR)s, heart rate, respiration), neuropsychological and personality tests, genomics and demographics: The Brain Resource International Database. It comprises data from over 2000 "normative" subjects and a growing number of patients with neurological and psychiatric illnesses, acquired from over 50 laboratories (in the U.S.A, United Kingdom, Holland, South Africa, Israel and Australia), all with identical equipment and experimental procedures. Three primary goals of this database are to quantify individual differences in normative brain function, to compare an individual's performance to their database peers, and to provide a robust normative framework for clinical assessment and treatment prediction. We present three example demonstrations in relation to these goals. First, we show how consistent age differences may be quantified when large subject numbers are available, using EEG and ERP data from nearly 2000 stringently screened. normative subjects. Second, the use of a normalization technique provides a means to compare clinical subjects (50 ADHD subjects in this study) to the normative database with the effects of age and gender taken into account. Third, we show how a profile of EEG/ERP and autonomic measures potentially provides a means to predict treatment response in ADHD subjects. The example data consists of EEG under eyes open and eyes closed and ERP data for auditory oddball, working memory and Go-NoGo paradigms. Autonomic measures of skin conductance (tonic skin conductance level, SCL, and phasic skin conductance responses, SCRs) were acquired simultaneously with central EEG/ERP measures. The findings show that the power of large samples, tested using standardized protocols, allows for the quantification of individual differences that can subsequently be used to control such variation and to enhance the sensitivity and specificity of comparisons between normative and clinical groups. In terms of broader significance, the combination of size and multidimensional measures tapping the brain's core cognitive competencies, may provide a normative and evidence-based framework for individually-based assessments in "Personalized Medicine."

Animals↗

BioBuilder as a database development and functional annotation platform for proteins.

BACKGROUND: The explosion in biological information creates the need for databases that are easy to develop, easy to maintain and can be easily manipulated by annotators who are most likely to be biologists. However, deployment of scalable and extensible databases is not an easy task and generally requires substantial expertise in database development. RESULTS: BioBuilder is a Zope-based software tool that was developed to facilitate intuitive creation of protein databases. Protein data can be entered and annotated through web forms along with the flexibility to add customized annotation features to protein entries. A built-in review system permits a global team of scientists to coordinate their annotation efforts. We have already used BioBuilder to develop Human Protein Reference Database http://www.hprd.org, a comprehensive annotated repository of the human proteome. The data can be exported in the extensible markup language (XML) format, which is rapidly becoming as the standard format for data exchange. CONCLUSIONS: As the proteomic data for several organisms begins to accumulate, BioBuilder will prove to be an invaluable platform for functional annotation and development of customizable protein centric databases. BioBuilder is open source and is available under the terms of LGPL.

Computational Biology↗

Gene and protein nomenclature in public databases.

BACKGROUND: Frequently, several alternative names are in use for biological objects such as genes and proteins. Applications like manual literature search, automated text-mining, named entity identification, gene/protein annotation, and linking of knowledge from different information sources require the knowledge of all used names referring to a given gene or protein. Various organism-specific or general public databases aim at organizing knowledge about genes and proteins. These databases can be used for deriving gene and protein name dictionaries. So far, little is known about the differences between databases in terms of size, ambiguities and overlap. RESULTS: We compiled five gene and protein name dictionaries for each of the five model organisms (yeast, fly, mouse, rat, and human) from different organism-specific and general public databases. We analyzed the degree of ambiguity of gene and protein names within and between dictionaries, to a lexicon of common English words and domain-related non-gene terms, and we compared different data sources in terms of size of extracted dictionaries and overlap of synonyms between those. The study shows that the number of genes/proteins and synonyms covered in individual databases varies significantly for a given organism, and that the degree of ambiguity of synonyms varies significantly between different organisms. Furthermore, it shows that, despite considerable efforts of co-curation, the overlap of synonyms in different data sources is rather moderate and that the degree of ambiguity of gene names with common English words and domain-related non-gene terms varies depending on the considered organism. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, these results indicate that the combination of data contained in different databases allows the generation of gene and protein name dictionaries that contain significantly more used names than dictionaries obtained from individual data sources. Furthermore, curation of combined dictionaries considerably increases size and decreases ambiguity. The entries of the curated synonym dictionary are available for manual querying, editing, and PubMed- or Google-search via the ProThesaurus-wiki. For automated querying via custom software, we offer a web service and an exemplary client application.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

Specialized microbial databases for inductive exploration of microbial genome sequences.

BACKGROUND: The enormous amount of genome sequence data asks for user-oriented databases to manage sequences and annotations. Queries must include search tools permitting function identification through exploration of related objects. METHODS: The GenoList package for collecting and mining microbial genome databases has been rewritten using MySQL as the database management system. Functions that were not available in MySQL, such as nested subquery, have been implemented. RESULTS: Inductive reasoning in the study of genomes starts from "islands of knowledge", centered around genes with some known background. With this concept of "neighborhood" in mind, a modified version of the GenoList structure has been used for organizing sequence data from prokaryotic genomes of particular interest in China. GenoChore http://bioinfo.hku.hk/genochore.html, a set of 17 specialized end-user-oriented microbial databases (including one instance of Microsporidia, Encephalitozoon cuniculi, a member of Eukarya) has been made publicly available. These databases allow the user to browse genome sequence and annotation data using standard queries. In addition they provide a weekly update of searches against the world-wide protein sequences data libraries, allowing one to monitor annotation updates on genes of interest. Finally, they allow users to search for patterns in DNA or protein sequences, taking into account a clustering of genes into formal operons, as well as providing extra facilities to query sequences using predefined sequence patterns. CONCLUSION: This growing set of specialized microbial databases organize data created by the first Chinese bacterial genome programs (ThermaList, Thermoanaerobacter tencongensis, LeptoList, with two different genomes of Leptospira interrogans and SepiList, Staphylococcus epidermidis) associated to related organisms for comparison.

Algorithms↗

MAASE: an alternative splicing database designed for supporting splicing microarray applications.

Alternative splicing is a prominent feature of higher eukaryotes. Understanding of the function of mRNA isoforms and the regulation of alternative splicing is a major challenge in the post-genomic era. The development of mRNA isoform sensitive microarrays, which requires precise splice-junction sequence information, is a promising approach. Despite the availability of a large number of mRNAs and ESTs in various databases and the efforts made to align transcript sequences to genomic sequences, existing alternative splicing databases do not offer adequate information in an appropriate format to aid in splicing array design. Here we describe our effort in constructing the Manually Annotated Alternatively Spliced Events (MAASE) database system, which is specifically designed to support splicing microarray applications. MAASE comprises two components: (1) a manual/computational annotation tool for the efficient extraction of critical sequence and functional information for alternative splicing events and (2) a user-friendly database of annotated events that allows convenient export of information to aid in microarray design and data analysis. We provide a detailed introduction and a step-by-step user guide to the MAASE database system to facilitate future large-scale annotation efforts, integration with other alternative splicing databases, and splicing array fabrication.

Alternative Splicing↗

Characteristics of the U.S. EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs' toxicity information databases.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) requires that data from toxicity testing be submitted to the OPP to support the registration of pesticide chemicals. Once the toxicity data are submitted, they are entered into various toxicity databases. The studies are listed in an archival database to catalog and allow retrieval of the study for review. Reviews of toxicity studies are then placed into a separate database that can be retrieved to support a regulatory position. Toxicity information for health effects other than cancer and gene mutations from chronic exposure is reviewed through a reference dose (RfD) approach, and these decisions and supporting data are entered into an RfD database. Carcinogenicity data are reviewed by a peer review process, and these decisions are entered into a newly developed database to show the regulatory decision with supporting data. The mutagenicity data are reviewed and acceptable data are entered into the Genetic Activity Profile system to catalog and display the submitted information. These databases contain the information used for hazard evaluations as part of the OPP review of pesticide chemicals.

Animals↗

HCVDB: hepatitis C virus sequences database.

UNLABELLED: To date, more than 30 000 hepatitis C virus (HCV) sequences have been deposited in the generalist databases DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ), EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (EMBL) and GenBank. The main difficulties with HCV sequences in these databases are their retrieval, annotation and analyses. To help HCV researchers face the increasing needs of HCV sequence analyses, we developed a specialised database of computer-annotated HCV sequences, called HCVDB. HCVDB is re-built every month from an up-to-date EMBL database by an automated process. HCVDB provides key data about the HCV sequences (e.g. genotype, genomic region, protein names and functions, known 3-dimensional structures) and ensures consistency of the annotations, which enables reliable keyword queries. The database is highly integrated with sequence and structure analysis tools and the SRS (LION bioscience) keywords query system. Thus, any user can extract subsets of sequences matching particular criteria or enter their own sequences and analyse them with various bioinformatics programs available on the same server. AVAILABILITY: HCVDB is available from http://hepatitis.ibcp.fr.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

EXProt--a database for EXPerimentally verified Protein functions.

EXProt (database for EXPerimentally verified Protein functions) is a new non-redundant database containing protein sequences for which the function has been experimentally verified. It is a selection of 3976 entries from the Prokaryotes section of the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database, Release 66, and 375 entries from the Pseudomonas Community Annotation Project (PseudoCAP). The entries in EXProt all have a unique ID number and provide information about the organism, protein sequence, functional annotation, link to entry in original database, and if known, gene name and link to references in PubMed/Medline. The EXProt web page (http://www.cmbi.nl/EXProt) provides further details of the database and a link to a BLAST search (blastp & blastx) of the database. The EXProt entries are indexed in SRS (http://www.cmbi.nl/srs/) and can be searched by means of keywords. Authors can be reached by email (exprot(cmbi.kun.nl).

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Measuring use patterns of online journals and databases.

PURPOSE: This research sought to determine use of online biomedical journals and databases and to assess current user characteristics associated with the use of online resources in an academic health sciences center. SETTING: The Library of the Health Sciences-Peoria is a regional site of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Library with 350 print journals, more than 4,000 online journals, and multiple online databases. METHODOLOGY: A survey was designed to assess online journal use, print journal use, database use, computer literacy levels, and other library user characteristics. A survey was sent through campus mail to all (471) UIC Peoria faculty, residents, and students. RESULTS: Forty-one percent (188) of the surveys were returned. Ninety-eight percent of the students, faculty, and residents reported having convenient access to a computer connected to the Internet. While 53% of the users indicated they searched MEDLINE at least once a week, other databases showed much lower usage. Overall, 71% of respondents indicated a preference for online over print journals when possible. CONCLUSIONS: Users prefer online resources to print, and many choose to access these online resources remotely. Convenience and full-text availability appear to play roles in selecting online resources. The findings of this study suggest that databases without links to full text and online journal collections without links from bibliographic databases will have lower use. These findings have implications for collection development, promotion of library resources, and end-user training.

Computer Literacy↗

A Distributed Database and a New Application for the DRG System.

The article presents a new solution for the implementation of the DRG classifying system used in Romania to finance hospitals. The new solution implies two proposals. The first one refers to the use of a fragmented and distributed database at level of each hospital, and the second refers to the management and the viewing of this database by means of an on-line application implemented in Java. The solution proposes that the distributed database should be managed by two powerful tools, meaning Oracle8 Server and Net8. Different types of users are proposed, each type with his own rights for managing and viewing the database. Excepting local users who use only their local database, there are also global users from National DRG Bureau who can see data from all local databases, at any time. This solution is more efficient, secure and modern, than the one used now.

Computer Communication Networks↗

[Strategy for the protein identification of human proteome expression profile: selection of searching database].

Widely used method of protein identification for high-throughout proteome expression profile studies was database-dependent, so the selection of databases for the protein identification was very important. Despite the deficiency of available human protein databases, the complementarity of human proteins could be got mainly from human genome but not from the protein databases of other organisms. According to the comparison of the current protein databases from different aspects, IPI was recommended for the basic identification for the studies of human proteome expression profile, and other human protein or nucleic acid databases were needed for the complementary identification and novel protein mining.

Animals↗

Non-sequence databases for biological activity and physicochemical properties.

A biological activity database and a physicochemical property database are described. They are intended to complement the protein sequence database of PIR-International. The Biological Activity Database and the Physicochemical Property Database contain information regarding the biological activity and the physicochemical properties of proteins, respectively. In addition they also provide information about wild-type molecules with which information concerning variant molecules may be compared. Data on artificial variant molecules are stored in the Artificial Variant Database which is described separately.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

A database model for studies of cocaine-dependent pregnant women and their families.

The database management functions for the Mothers Project are arranged into administrative and analytic task groups, and separate systems are devised for each. The task groups can be distinguished not only by differences in data structure but also by interface requirements. The administrative database system uses a relational database technology, whereas the analytic database system employs more traditional flat-file methods. Although the database management systems are complex, they are based on standard database practices, used in widely available software packages, and run on inexpensive desktop computing equipment.

Cocaine↗

Creation and maintenance of Helix, a Web based database of medical genetics laboratories, to serve the needs of the genetics community.

Helix (healthlinks.washington.edu/helix) is a web accessible database that serves as the main U.S. directory of laboratories offering genetic testing. The database was designed to address the previously unmet need for a centralized, continuously updated source of information about clinical and research genetic testing to keep pace with the rapid rate of gene discovery resulting from the Human Genome Project. The Helix project began in 1992 at the University of Washington and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center. It has evolved from a single user stand alone relational database to a fully Web enabled database queried and maintained via the web and linked to other web accessible genomic databases. As of February, 1998 it lists more than 500 diseases and 290 laboratories, with over 5,200 registered users making approximately 250 queries/day (90% via the Internet). We describe the iterative design, implementation, population and assessment of the database over a six year period.

Database Management Systems↗

A Taxonomic Search Engine: federating taxonomic databases using web services.

BACKGROUND: The taxonomic name of an organism is a key link between different databases that store information on that organism. However, in the absence of a single, comprehensive database of organism names, individual databases lack an easy means of checking the correctness of a name. Furthermore, the same organism may have more than one name, and the same name may apply to more than one organism. RESULTS: The Taxonomic Search Engine (TSE) is a web application written in PHP that queries multiple taxonomic databases (ITIS, Index Fungorum, IPNI, NCBI, and uBIO) and summarises the results in a consistent format. It supports "drill-down" queries to retrieve a specific record. The TSE can optionally suggest alternative spellings the user can try. It also acts as a Life Science Identifier (LSID) authority for the source taxonomic databases, providing globally unique identifiers (and associated metadata) for each name. CONCLUSION: The Taxonomic Search Engine is available at http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/ and provides a simple demonstration of the potential of the federated approach to providing access to taxonomic names.

Classification↗

Human gene mutation database-a biomedical information and research resource.

Although 20 years have elapsed since the first single basepair substitution underlying an inherited disease in humans was characterised at the DNA level, the initiative has only recently been taken to establish central database resources for pathological genetic variants. Disease-associated gene lesions are currently collected and publicised by the Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD) in Cardiff, locus-specific mutation databases, and to some extent also by the Genome Database (GDB) and Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM). To date, HGMD represents the only comprehensive and publicly available database of gene lesions underlying human inherited disease. By July 1999, HGMD contained over 18,000 different mutations from some 900 human genes, the majority being single basepair substitutions. In addition to its potential as an information resource for clinicians and genetic counsellors, HGMD has allowed molecular geneticists to address a variety of biological questions through meta-analysis of the collated data. HGMD also promises to assist research workers in optimising mutation search strategies for a given gene. A questionnaire sent out to, and answered by, the editors of 20 key journals revealed that human genetics journals are increasingly reluctant to publish mutation reports. Electronic data submission and publication facilities are therefore urgently required. The World Wide Web (WWW) provides an excellent medium within which to combine the centralised management of basic mutation data, including rigorous quality control, with the possibility of publishing additional mutation-related information. In response to these needs, HGMD has both instituted a collaboration with Springer-Verlag GmbH, Heidelberg, to potentiate free online submission and electronic publication of human gene mutation data and developed links with the curators of locus-specific mutation databases.

Databases, Factual↗