August 1, 2011 (Vol. 31, No. 14)
URL:
http://www.plasmaproteomedatabase.org
Rating:
Strong Points: Many criteria for browsing/searching
Weak Points: Some entries have little annotation
Summary:
One may not often consider the complexity of blood plasma (you know, the liquid in which our blood cells are suspended). Even if you were to direct your thoughts toward the proteins contained within this essential fluid, I bet you’d be surprised to learn that over 7,500 proteins/protein isoforms are found in plasma. Now that your interest is sufficiently piqued, you can go visit the Plasma Proteome Database to learn more about this plethora of plasma proteins. The information from this database is compiled through manual annotation of literature searches, which means that visitors to the site get to reap the benefits of this labor-intensive process. One can browse the database by a number of categories, including molecule function, protein domain or motif, post-translational modification, or cellular component. Alternatively, visitors can search the database using any of these criteria, as well as protein name, site of expression, or involvement in a particular disease.