title: Metabolic database systems for the analysis of genome-wide function.
abstract: Genome sequencing projects provide an inventory of molecular components for a wide variety of organisms. Metabolic databases integrate these functional descriptions of individual modules into a higher-level characterization of cellular metabolism. This article reviews efforts related to the development of metabolic databases and discusses how such systems have aided the delineation of genome properties. We illustrate the design features of metabolic databases and discuss the challenges facing metabolic as well as databases of other functional type.
authors.affiliation: Computational Genomics Group, The European Bioinformatics Institute, EMBL Cambridge Outstation, Cambridge CB1O 1SD, UK. tsoka@ebi.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sophia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tsoka
authors.forename: Christos A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Ouzounis
mesh_terms: D003628:Database Management Systems; D016208:Databases, Factual; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D016678:Genome; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D008660:Metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*