Integrating biological data--the Distributed Annotation System.
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.


CONCLUSIONS
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.
Jenkinson
Andrew M
AM
European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SD, UK. andy.jenkinson@ebi.ac.uk
Albrecht
Mario
M
Birney
Ewan
E
Blankenburg
Hagen
H
Down
Thomas
T
Finn
Robert D
RD
Hermjakob
Henning
H
Hubbard
Tim J P
TJ
Jimenez
Rafael C
RC
Jones
Philip
P
Kähäri
Andreas
A
Kulesha
Eugene
E
Macías
José R
JR
Reeves
Gabrielle A
GA
Prlić
Andreas
A
D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D003628:Database Management Systems; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D018511:Systems Integration