CyanoBase: the cyanobacteria genome database update 2010

CyanoBase (http://genome.kazusa.or.jp/cyanobase) is the genome database for cyanobacteria, which are model organisms for photosynthesis. The database houses cyanobacteria species information, complete genome sequences, genome-scale experiment data, gene information, gene annotations and mutant information. In this version, we updated these datasets and improved the navigation and the visual display of the data views. In addition, a web service API now enables users to retrieve the data in various formats with other tools, seamlessly

Sapporo: A workflow execution service that encourages the reuse of workflows in various languages in bioinformatics [version 2; peer review: 1 approved, 2 approved with reservations]

The increased demand for efficient computation in data analysis encourages researchers in biomedical science to use workflow systems. Workflow systems, or so-called workflow languages, are used for the description and execution of a set of data analysis steps. Workflow systems increase the productivity of researchers, specifically in fields that use high-throughput DNA sequencing applications, where scalable computation is required. As systems have improved the portability of data analysis workflows, research communities are able to share workflows to reduce the cost of building ordinary analysis procedures. However, having multiple workflow systems in a research field has resulted in the distribution of efforts across different workflow system communities. As each workflow system has its unique characteristics, it is not feasible to learn every single system in order to use publicly shared workflows. Thus, we developed Sapporo, an application to provide a unified layer of workflow execution upon the differences of various workflow systems. Sapporo has two components: an application programming interface (API) that receives the request of a workflow run and a browser-based client for the API. The API follows the Workflow Execution Service API standard proposed by the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health. The current implementation supports the execution of workflows in four languages: Common Workflow Language, Workflow Description Language, Snakemake, and Nextflow. With its extensible and scalable design, Sapporo can support the research community in utilizing valuable resources for data analysis

The 2nd DBCLS BioHackathon: interoperable bioinformatics Web services for integrated applications

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The interaction between biological researchers and the bioinformatics tools they use is still hampered by incomplete interoperability between such tools. To ensure interoperability initiatives are effectively deployed, end-user applications need to be aware of, and support, best practices and standards. Here, we report on an initiative in which software developers and genome biologists came together to explore and raise awareness of these issues: BioHackathon 2009.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Developers in attendance came from diverse backgrounds, with experts in Web services, workflow tools, text mining and visualization. Genome biologists provided expertise and exemplar data from the domains of sequence and pathway analysis and glyco-informatics. One goal of the meeting was to evaluate the ability to address real world use cases in these domains using the tools that the developers represented. This resulted in i) a workflow to annotate 100,000 sequences from an invertebrate species; ii) an integrated system for analysis of the transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) enriched based on differential gene expression data obtained from a microarray experiment; iii) a workflow to enumerate putative physical protein interactions among enzymes in a metabolic pathway using protein structure data; iv) a workflow to analyze glyco-gene-related diseases by searching for human homologs of glyco-genes in other species, such as fruit flies, and retrieving their phenotype-annotated SNPs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Beyond deriving prototype solutions for each use-case, a second major purpose of the BioHackathon was to highlight areas of insufficiency. We discuss the issues raised by our exploration of the problem/solution space, concluding that there are still problems with the way Web services are modeled and annotated, including: i) the absence of several useful data or analysis functions in the Web service "space"; ii) the lack of documentation of methods; iii) lack of compliance with the SOAP/WSDL specification among and between various programming-language libraries; and iv) incompatibility between various bioinformatics data formats. Although it was still difficult to solve real world problems posed to the developers by the biological researchers in attendance because of these problems, we note the promise of addressing these issues within a semantic framework.</p

BioHackathon series in 2011 and 2012: penetration of ontology and linked data in life science domains

The application of semantic technologies to the integration of biological data and the interoperability of bioinformatics analysis and visualization tools has been the common theme of a series of annual BioHackathons hosted in Japan for the past five years. Here we provide a review of the activities and outcomes from the BioHackathons held in 2011 in Kyoto and 2012 in Toyama. In order to efficiently implement semantic technologies in the life sciences, participants formed various sub-groups and worked on the following topics: Resource Description Framework (RDF) models for specific domains, text mining of the literature, ontology development, essential metadata for biological databases, platforms to enable efficient Semantic Web technology development and interoperability, and the development of applications for Semantic Web data. In this review, we briefly introduce the themes covered by these sub-groups. The observations made, conclusions drawn, and software development projects that emerged from these activities are discussed

Make RDF data more inter-connectable

RDF data show their values the most when built in a distributed manner and linked to each other from several aspects with URIs as their keys. However, we have seen several URI mismatches across RDF datasets that should be identical such as the cases of using different prefixes and code systems. In this situation, we need to develop an infrastructure in which these URIs are treated identically by using an URI rewriting dictionary constructed to be tailored to each RDF dataset. Here, we show some examples of these synonymous URIs and propose an architecture to rewrite some URIs when retrieving RDF data from multiple SPARQL endpoints. As a result, users can obtain properties as to a consolidated URI, which otherwise get ones explicitly asserted as triples only