title: Introducing glycomics data into the Semantic Web.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Glycoscience is a research field focusing on complex carbohydrates (otherwise known as glycans)a, which can, for example, serve as "switches" that toggle between different functions of a glycoprotein or glycolipid. Due to the advancement of glycomics technologies that are used to characterize glycan structures, many glycomics databases are now publicly available and provide useful information for glycoscience research. However, these databases have almost no link to other life science databases.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In order to implement support for the Semantic Web most efficiently for glycomics research, the developers of major glycomics databases agreed on a minimal standard for representing glycan structure and annotation information using RDF (Resource Description Framework). Moreover, all of the participants implemented this standard prototype and generated preliminary RDF versions of their data. To test the utility of the converted data, all of the data sets were uploaded into a Virtuoso triple store, and several SPARQL queries were tested as "proofs-of-concept" to illustrate the utility of the Semantic Web in querying across databases which were originally difficult to implement.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We were able to successfully retrieve information by linking UniCarbKB, GlycomeDB and JCGGDB in a single SPARQL query to obtain our target information. We also tested queries linking UniProt with GlycoEpitope as well as lectin data with GlycomeDB through PDB. As a result, we have been able to link proteomics data with glycomics data through the implementation of Semantic Web technologies, allowing for more flexible queries across these domains.
authors.forename: Kiyoko F
authors.initials: KF
authors.lastname: Aoki-Kinoshita
authors.forename: Jerven
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bolleman
authors.forename: Matthew P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Shin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kawano
authors.forename: Jin-Dong
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lütteke
authors.forename: Masaaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Matsubara
authors.forename: Shujiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Okuda
authors.forename: Rene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ranzinger
authors.forename: Hiromichi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sawaki
authors.forename: Toshihide
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shikanai
authors.forename: Daisuke
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shinmachi
authors.forename: Yoshinori
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Toukach
authors.forename: Issaku
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Nicolle H
authors.initials: NH
authors.lastname: Packer
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Medical Glycoscience, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba Central-2, Umezono 1-1-1, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan. h.narimatsu@aist.go.jp.
authors.forename: Hisashi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Narimatsu