Database Commons

a catalog of worldwide biological databases

The 2022 Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue contains 185 papers, including 87 papers reporting on new databases and 85 updates from resources previously published in the Issue. Thirteen additional manuscripts provide updates on databases most recently published elsewhere. Seven new databases focus specifically on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, including SCoV2-MD, the first of the Issue's Breakthrough Articles. Major nucleic acid databases reporting updates include MODOMICS, JASPAR and miRTarBase. The AlphaFold Protein Structure Database, described in the second Breakthrough Article, is the stand-out in the protein section, where the Human Proteoform Atlas and GproteinDb are other notable new arrivals. Updates from DisProt, FuzDB and ELM comprehensively cover disordered proteins. Under the metabolism and signalling section Reactome, ConsensusPathDB, HMDB and CAZy are major returning resources. In microbial and viral genomes taxonomy and systematics are well covered by LPSN, TYGS and GTDB. Genomics resources include Ensembl, Ensembl Genomes and UCSC Genome Browser. Major returning pharmacology resource names include the IUPHAR/BPS guide and the Therapeutic Target Database. New plant databases include PlantGSAD for gene lists and qPTMplants for post-translational modifications. The entire Database Issue is freely available online on the Nucleic Acids Research website (https://academic.oup.com/nar). Our latest update to the NAR online Molecular Biology Database Collection brings the total number of entries to 1645. Following last year's major cleanup, we have updated 317 entries, listing 89 new resources and trimming 80 discontinued URLs. The current release is available at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/nar/database/c/.

The 2020 Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue contains 148 papers spanning molecular biology. They include 59 papers reporting on new databases and 79 covering recent changes to resources previously published in the issue. A further ten papers are updates on databases most recently published elsewhere. This issue contains three breakthrough articles: AntiBodies Chemically Defined (ABCD) curates antibody sequences and their cognate antigens; SCOP returns with a new schema and breaks away from a purely hierarchical structure; while the new Alliance of Genome Resources brings together a number of Model Organism databases to pool knowledge and tools. Major returning nucleic acid databases include miRDB and miRTarBase. Databases for protein sequence analysis include CDD, DisProt and ELM, alongside no fewer than four newcomers covering proteins involved in liquid-liquid phase separation. In metabolism and signaling, Pathway Commons, Reactome and Metabolights all contribute papers. PATRIC and MicroScope update in microbial genomes while human and model organism genomics resources include Ensembl, Ensembl genomes and UCSC Genome Browser. Immune-related proteins are covered by updates from IPD-IMGT/HLA and AFND, as well as newcomers VDJbase and OGRDB. Drug design is catered for by updates from the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology and the Therapeutic Target Database. The entire Database Issue is freely available online on the Nucleic Acids Research website (https://academic.oup.com/nar). The NAR online Molecular Biology Database Collection has been revised, updating 305 entries, adding 65 new resources and eliminating 125 discontinued URLs; so bringing the current total to 1637 databases. It is available at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/nar/database/c/.

The 2018 Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue contains 181 papers spanning molecular biology. Among them, 82 are new and 84 are updates describing resources that appeared in the Issue previously. The remaining 15 cover databases most recently published elsewhere. Databases in the area of nucleic acids include 3DIV for visualisation of data on genome 3D structure and RNArchitecture, a hierarchical classification of RNA families. Protein databases include the established SMART, ELM and MEROPS while GPCRdb and the newcomer STCRDab cover families of biomedical interest. In the area of metabolism, HMDB and Reactome both report new features while PULDB appears in NAR for the first time. This issue also contains reports on genomics resources including Ensembl, the UCSC Genome Browser and ENCODE. Update papers from the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology and DrugBank are highlights of the drug and drug target section while a number of proteomics databases including proteomicsDB are also covered. The entire Database Issue is freely available online on the Nucleic Acids Research website (https://academic.oup.com/nar). The NAR online Molecular Biology Database Collection has been updated, reviewing 138 entries, adding 88 new resources and eliminating 47 discontinued URLs, bringing the current total to 1737 databases. It is available at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/nar/database/c/.

The 2016 Database Issue of Nucleic Acids Research starts with overviews of the resources provided by three major bioinformatics centers, the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics (SIB). Also included are descriptions of 62 new databases and updates on 95 databases that have been previously featured in NAR plus 17 previously described elsewhere. A number of papers in this issue deal with resources on nucleic acids, including various kinds of non-coding RNAs and their interactions, molecular dynamics simulations of nucleic acid structure, and two databases of super-enhancers. The protein database section features important updates on the EBI's Pfam, PDBe and PRIDE databases, as well as a variety of resources on pathways, metabolomics and metabolic modeling. This issue also includes updates on popular metagenomics resources, such as MG-RAST, EBI Metagenomics, and probeBASE, as well as a newly compiled Human Pan-Microbe Communities database. A significant fraction of the new and updated databases are dedicated to the genetic basis of disease, primarily cancer, and various aspects of drug research, including resources for patented drugs, their side effects, withdrawn drugs, and potential drug targets. A further six papers present updated databases of various antimicrobial and anticancer peptides. The entire Database Issue is freely available online on the Nucleic Acids Research website (http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/). The NAR online Molecular Biology Database Collection, http://www.oxfordjournals.org/nar/database/c/, has been updated with the addition of 88 new resources and removal of 23 obsolete websites, which brought the current listing to 1685 databases.

The 2014 Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue includes descriptions of 58 new molecular biology databases and recent updates to 123 databases previously featured in NAR or other journals. For convenience, the issue is now divided into eight sections that reflect major subject categories. Among the highlights of this issue are six databases of the transcription factor binding sites in various organisms and updates on such popular databases as CAZy, Database of Genomic Variants (DGV), dbGaP, DrugBank, KEGG, miRBase, Pfam, Reactome, SEED, TCDB and UniProt. There is a strong block of structural databases, which includes, among others, the new RNA Bricks database, updates on PDBe, PDBsum, ArchDB, Gene3D, ModBase, Nucleic Acid Database and the recently revived iPfam database. An update on the NCBI's MMDB describes VAST+, an improved tool for protein structure comparison. Two articles highlight the development of the Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) database: one describes SCOPe, which automates assignment of new structures to the existing SCOP hierarchy; the other one describes the first version of SCOP2, with its more flexible approach to classifying protein structures. This issue also includes a collection of articles on bacterial taxonomy and metagenomics, which includes updates on the List of Prokaryotic Names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN), Ribosomal Database Project (RDP), the Silva/LTP project and several new metagenomics resources. The NAR online Molecular Biology Database Collection, http://www.oxfordjournals.org/nar/database/c/, has been expanded to 1552 databases. The entire Database Issue is freely available online on the Nucleic Acids Research website (http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/).

The 19th annual Database Issue of Nucleic Acids Research features descriptions of 92 new online databases covering various areas of molecular biology and 100 papers describing recent updates to the databases previously described in NAR and other journals. The highlights of this issue include, among others, a description of neXtProt, a knowledgebase on human proteins; a detailed explanation of the principles behind the NCBI Taxonomy Database; NCBI and EBI papers on the recently launched BioSample databases that store sample information for a variety of database resources; descriptions of the recent developments in the Gene Ontology and UniProt Gene Ontology Annotation projects; updates on Pfam, SMART and InterPro domain databases; update papers on KEGG and TAIR, two universally acclaimed databases that face an uncertain future; and a separate section with 10 wiki-based databases, introduced in an accompanying editorial. The NAR online Molecular Biology Database Collection, available at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/nar/database/a/, has been updated and now lists 1380 databases. Brief machine-readable descriptions of the databases featured in this issue, according to the BioDBcore standards, will be provided at the http://biosharing.org/biodbcore web site. The full content of the Database Issue is freely available online on the Nucleic Acids Research web site (http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/).

The current issue of Nucleic Acids Research includes descriptions of 58 new and 73 updated data resources. The accompanying online Database Collection, available at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/nar/database/a/, now lists 1230 carefully selected databases covering various aspects of molecular and cell biology. While most data resource descriptions remain very brief, the issue includes several longer papers that highlight recent significant developments in such databases as Pfam, MetaCyc, UniProt, ELM and PDBe. The databases described in the Database Issue and Database Collection, however, are far more than a distinct set of resources; they form a network of connected data, concepts and shared technology. The full content of the Database Issue is available online at the Nucleic Acids Research web site (http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/).

The Nucleic Acids Research online Molecular Biology Database Collection is a public repository that lists more than 1000 databases described in this and previous Nucleic Acids Research annual database issues, as well as a selection of molecular biology databases described in other journals. All databases included in this Collection are freely available to the public. The 2008 update includes 1078 databases, 110 more than the previous one. The links to more than 80 databases have been updated and 25 obsolete databases have been removed from the list. The complete database list and summaries are available online at the Nucleic Acids Research web site, http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/.

The NAR Molecular Biology Database Collection is a public online resource that contains links to all databases described in this issue of Nucleic Acids Research. In addition, this collection lists databases that have been featured in previous issues of NAR, as well as selected other databases that are freely available to the public and may be useful to the molecular biologist. The 2006 update includes 858 databases, 139 more than the previous one. The databases come with brief summaries, many of which have been updated recently. Each database is assigned a stable accession number that does not change if the database moves to a new location and its URL, authors' names or the contact person address are updated. The complete database list and summaries are available online at the Nucleic Acids Research website http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/.

The Molecular Biology Database Collection is a public resource listing key databases of value to the biologist, including those featured in this issue of Nucleic Acids Research, and other high-quality databases. All databases included in this Collection are freely available to the public. This listing aims to serve as a convenient starting point for searching the web for reliable information on various aspects of molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics. This year's update includes 548 databases, 162 more than the previous one. The databases are organized in a hierarchical classification that should simplify finding the right database for each given task. Each database in the list comes with a recently updated brief description. The database list and the database descriptions can be accessed online at the Nucleic Acids Research web site http://nar. oupjournals.org/.

The Molecular Biology Database Collection is an online resource listing key databases of value to the biological community. This Collection is intended to bring fellow scientists' attention to high-quality databases that are available throughout the world, rather than just be a lengthy listing of all available databases. As such, this up-to-date listing is intended to serve as the initial point from which to find specialized databases that may be of use in biological research. The databases included in this Collection provide new value to the underlying data by virtue of curation, new data connections or other innovative approaches. Short, searchable summaries and updates for each of the databases included in the Collection are available through the Nucleic Acids Research Web site at http://nar.oupjournals.org.

The Molecular Biology Database Collection represents an effort geared at making molecular biology database resources more accessible to biologists. This online resource, available at http://www.oup.co.uk/nar/Volume_28/Issue_01/html /gkd115_gml.html, is intended to serve as a searchable, up-to-date, centralized jumping-off point to individual Web sites. An emphasis has also been placed on including databases where new value is added to the underlying data by virtue of curation, new data connections, or other innovative approaches.