Bioinformatics and Genomics data

• Bioinformatics and genomics databases are primarily sequence-oriented. Some of the most important databases include Genebank and EMBL (general nucleotide sequences), dbEST (cDNA sequences), RDP (RNA sequences), Swissprot (annotated sequences), DDBJ (DNA database of Japan), PIR (Protein Information Resource), PDB (Protein Data Bank), and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes).

• In general, the greater bioinformatics community has done a marvelous job of data collection and dissemination. As database number, size and complexity have increased, advanced data retrieval systems have appeared which keep informatics tasks manageable (DB-GET, the NIH Genobase server, Atlas, Prot-Web, BSC and others).

• Bioinformatic data probably has as much diversity as chemical data, but it exists in a single informatics universe. Systems such as NCBI's Entrez even provide effective integration with information universes which neighbor bioinformatics (e.g., Genbank and Medline)

• Chemical information is not well integrated with bioinformatics. There are obvious links between the two which are not currently addressed. (e.g., small molecule roles in metabolic pathways, drug binding, etc.)

Next