BMC Bioinformatics (Jul 2008)

Integrating biological data – the Distributed Annotation System

  • Jones Philip,
  • Jimenez Rafael C,
  • Hubbard Tim JP,
  • Hermjakob Henning,
  • Finn Robert D,
  • Down Thomas,
  • Blankenburg Hagen,
  • Birney Ewan,
  • Albrecht Mario,
  • Jenkinson Andrew M,
  • Kähäri Andreas,
  • Kulesha Eugene,
  • Macías José R,
  • Reeves Gabrielle A,
  • Prlić Andreas

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-9-S8-S3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. Suppl 8
p. S3

Abstract

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Abstract Background The 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. Results Here 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. Conclusion Our 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.