Your browser version may not work well with NCBI's Web applications. More information here...
1: BMC Bioinformatics. 2001;2:7. Epub 2001 Oct 10.
Related Articles, Links
Click here to read Click here to read
The distributed annotation system.

Dowell RD, Jokerst RM, Day A, Eddy SR, Stein L.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Genetics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA. robin@genetics.wustl.edu

BACKGROUND: Currently, most genome annotation is curated by centralized groups with limited resources. Efforts to share annotations transparently among multiple groups have not yet been satisfactory. RESULTS: Here we introduce a concept called the Distributed Annotation System (DAS). DAS allows sequence annotations to be decentralized among multiple third-party annotators and integrated on an as-needed basis by client-side software. The communication between client and servers in DAS is defined by the DAS XML specification. Annotations are displayed in layers, one per server. Any client or server adhering to the DAS XML specification can participate in the system; we describe a simple prototype client and server example. CONCLUSIONS: The DAS specification is being used experimentally by Ensembl, WormBase, and the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project. Continued success will depend on the readiness of the research community to adopt DAS and provide annotations. All components are freely available from the project website http://www.biodas.org/.

Publication Types:
PMID: 11667947 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

PMCID: PMC58584