The Integr8 project--a resource for genomic and proteomic data

Integr8 (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/integr8/) is providing an integration layer for the exploitation of genomic and proteomic data by drawing on databases maintained at major bioinformatics centres in Europe. Main aims are to store the relationships of biological entities to each other and to entries in other databases, to provide a framework that allows for new kinds of data to be integrated, and to offer an entity-centric view of complete genomes and proteomes. Basic tools for data integration comprise the Proteome Analysis database, the International Protein Index (IPI), the Universal Protein sequence archive (UniParc) and the Genome Reviews. Entry points for the Integr8 portal depend on the users entity of interest: from browsing the taxonomy or with a predetermined species of interest, the species page can be used, and a simple search page leads to different applications when looking for certain protein sequences or genes. Customisable statistics data are available from the BioMart application, and pre-prepared data can be downloaded from the FTP site.