What is SWISS - PROT? Give its important features.
Answers
SWISS-PROT is a curated protein sequence database which strives to provide a high level of annotation (such as the description of the function of a protein, its domains structure, post-translational modifications, variants, etc.), a minimal level of redundancy and high level of integration with other databases.
FEATURES:
1. In SWISS-PROT annotation is mainly found in the comment lines (CC), in the feature table (FT) and in the keyword lines (KW). Most comments are classified by ‘topics’, an approach which permits easy retrieval of specific categories of data from the database.
2. Minimal redundancy:
In SWISS-PROT we try as much as possible to merge all these data, so as to minimize the redundancy of the database. If conflicts exist between various sequencing reports they are indicated in the feature table of the corresponding entry.
3. Integration with other databases:
It is important to provide the users of biomolecular databases with a degree of integration between the three types of sequence-related databases (nucleic acid sequences, protein sequences and protein tertiary structures), as well as with specialized data collections.
4. Documentation files:
SWISS-PROT is distributed with a large number of documentation files. Some of these files have been available for a long time (the user manual, release notes, the various indices for authors, citations, keywords, etc.), but many have been created recently and we are continuously adding new files.