Rafael C. Jimenez

The MIntAct project—IntAct as a common curation platform for 11 molecular interaction databases

IntAct (freely available at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/intact) is an open-source, open data molecular interaction database populated by data either curated from the literature or from direct data depositions. IntAct has developed a sophisticated web-based curation tool, capable of supporting both IMEx- and MIMIx-level curation. This tool is now utilized by multiple additional curation teams, all of whom annotate data directly into the IntAct database. Members of the IntAct team supply appropriate levels of training, perform quality control on entries and take responsibility for long-term data maintenance. Recently, the MINT and IntAct databases decided to merge their separate efforts to make optimal use of limited developer resources and maximize the curation output. All data manually curated by the MINT curators have been moved into the IntAct database at EMBL-EBI and are merged with the existing IntAct dataset. Both IntAct and MINT are active contributors to the IMEx consortium (http://www.imexconsortium.org).

PSICQUIC and PSISCORE: accessing and scoring molecular interactions

To study proteins in the context of a cellular system, it is essential that the molecules with which a protein interacts are identified and the functional consequence of each interaction is understood. A plethora of resources now exist to capture molecular interaction data from the many laboratories generating…

Integrating biological data – the Distributed Annotation System

BackgroundThe Distributed Annotation System (DAS) is a widely adopted protocol for dynamically integrating a wide range of biological data from geographically diverse sources. DAS continues to expand its applicability and evolve in response to new challenges facing integrative bioinformatics.ResultsHere we describe the various infrastructure components of DAS and present a new extended version of the DAS specification. Version 1.53E incorporates several recent developments, including its extension to serve new data types and an ontology for protein features.ConclusionOur extensions to the DAS protocol have facilitated the integration of new data types, and our improvements to the existing DAS infrastructure have addressed recent challenges. The steadily increasing numbers of available data sources demonstrates further adoption of the DAS protocol.

BioJS: an open source JavaScript framework for biological data visualization.

SUMMARY BioJS is an open-source project whose main objective is the visualization of biological data in JavaScript. BioJS provides an easy-to-use consistent framework for bioinformatics application programmers. It follows a community-driven standard specification that includes a collection of components purposely designed to require a very simple configuration and installation. In addition to the programming framework, BioJS provides a centralized repository of components available for reutilization by the bioinformatics community. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION http://code.google.com/p/biojs/. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

A new reference implementation of the PSICQUIC web service

The Proteomics Standard Initiative Common QUery InterfaCe (PSICQUIC) specification was created by the Human Proteome Organization Proteomics Standards Initiative (HUPO-PSI) to enable computational access to molecular-interaction data resources by means of a standard Web Service and query language. Currently providing >150 million binary interaction evidences from 28 servers globally, the PSICQUIC interface allows the concurrent search of multiple molecular-interaction information resources using a single query. Here, we present an extension of the PSICQUIC specification (version 1.3), which has been released to be compliant with the enhanced standards in molecular interactions. The new release also includes a new reference implementation of the PSICQUIC server available to the data providers. It offers augmented web service capabilities and improves the user experience. PSICQUIC has been running for almost 5 years, with a user base growing from only 4 data providers to 28 (April 2013) allowing access to 151 310 109 binary interactions. The power of this web service is shown in PSICQUIC View web application, an example of how to simultaneously query, browse and download results from the different PSICQUIC servers. This application is free and open to all users with no login requirement (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/webservices/psicquic/view/main.xhtml).

Tools and data services registry: a community effort to document bioinformatics resources

Life sciences are yielding huge data sets that underpin scientific discoveries fundamental to improvement in human health, agriculture and the environment. In support of these discoveries, a plethora of databases and tools are deployed, in technically complex and diverse implementations, across a spectrum of scientific disciplines. The corpus of documentation of these resources is fragmented across the Web, with much redundancy, and has lacked a common standard of information. The outcome is that scientists must often struggle to find, understand, compare and use the best resources for the task at hand. Here we present a community-driven curation effort, supported by ELIXIR—the European infrastructure for biological information—that aspires to a comprehensive and consistent registry of information about bioinformatics resources. The sustainable upkeep of this Tools and Data Services Registry is assured by a curation effort driven by and tailored to local needs, and shared amongst a network of engaged partners. As of November 2015, the registry includes 1785 resources, with depositions from 126 individual registrations including 52 institutional providers and 74 individuals. With community support, the registry can become a standard for dissemination of information about bioinformatics resources: we welcome everyone to join us in this common endeavour. The registry is freely available at https://bio.tools.

Integration of Cardiac Proteome Biology and Medicine by a Specialized Knowledgebase

Rationale: Omics sciences enable a systems-level perspective in characterizing cardiovascular biology. Integration of diverse proteomics data via a computational strategy will catalyze the assembly of contextualized knowledge, foster discoveries through multidisciplinary investigations, and minimize unnecessary redundancy in research efforts. Objective: The goal of this project is to develop a consolidated cardiac proteome knowledgebase with novel bioinformatics pipeline and Web portals, thereby serving as a new resource to advance cardiovascular biology and medicine. Methods and Results: We created Cardiac Organellar Protein Atlas Knowledgebase (COPaKB; www.HeartProteome.org), a centralized platform of high-quality cardiac proteomic data, bioinformatics tools, and relevant cardiovascular phenotypes. Currently, COPaKB features 8 organellar modules, comprising 4203 LC-MS/MS experiments from human, mouse, drosophila, and Caenorhabditis elegans, as well as expression images of 10 924 proteins in human myocardium. In addition, the Java-coded bioinformatics tools provided by COPaKB enable cardiovascular investigators in all disciplines to retrieve and analyze pertinent organellar protein properties of interest. Conclusions: COPaKB provides an innovative and interactive resource that connects research interests with the new biological discoveries in protein sciences. With an array of intuitive tools in this unified Web server, nonproteomics investigators can conveniently collaborate with proteomics specialists to dissect the molecular signatures of cardiovascular phenotypes.

Best practices in bioinformatics training for life scientists.

The mountains of data thrusting from the new landscape of modern high-throughput biology are irrevocably changing biomedical research and creating a near-insatiable demand for training in data management and manipulation and data mining and analysis. Among life scientists, from clinicians to environmental researchers, a common theme is the need not just to use, and gain familiarity with, bioinformatics tools and resources but also to understand their underlying fundamental theoretical and practical concepts. Providing bioinformatics training to empower life scientists to handle and analyse their data efficiently, and progress their research, is a challenge across the globe. Delivering good training goes beyond traditional lectures and resource-centric demos, using interactivity, problem-solving exercises and cooperative learning to substantially enhance training quality and learning outcomes. In this context, this article discusses various pragmatic criteria for identifying training needs and learning objectives, for selecting suitable trainees and trainers, for developing and maintaining training skills and evaluating training quality. Adherence to these criteria may help not only to guide course organizers and trainers on the path towards bioinformatics training excellence but, importantly, also to improve the training experience for life scientists.

Dasty2, an Ajax protein DAS client

SUMMARY Dasty2 is a highly interactive web client integrating protein sequence annotations from currently more than 40 sources, using the distributed annotation system (DAS). AVAILABILITY Dasty2 is an open source tool freely available under the terms of the Apache License 2.0, publicly available at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/dasty/.

Discovering and linking public omics data sets using the Omics Discovery Index.

Yasset Perez-Riverola,†,*, Mingze Baia,b,c,†, Felipe da Veiga Leprevostd, Silvano Squizzatoa, Young Mi Parka, Kenneth Hauga, Adam J. Carrolle, Dylan Spaldinga, Justin Paschalla, Mingxun Wangf, Noemi del-Toroa, Tobias Ternenta, Peng Zhangd,g, Nicola Busoa, Nuno Bandeiraf, Eric W. Deutschh, David S Campbellh, Ronald C. Beavisi, Reza M. Saleka, Ugis Sarkansa, Robert Petryszaka, Maria Keaysa, Eoin Fahyj, Manish Sudj, Shankar Subramaniamj, Ariana Barberak, Rafael C. Jiménezl, Alexey I. Nesvizhskiid, SusannaAssunta Sansonem, Christoph Steinbecka, Rodrigo Lopeza, Juan Antonio Vizcaínoa, Peipei Pingn, and Henning Hermjakoba,c,* aEuropean Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SD, UK