A Practical Guide to Using Glycomics Databases

Abstract

The idea for this book originated in a workshop held during the AnnualMeeting of the Japanese Society for CarbohydrateResearch in 2014. Subsequently, I attempted to contact the major database providers of glycoscience-related data and gratefully received very positive replies, resulting in this practical guide. I must note that I originally focused on databases and not Web-based tools when I first contacted authors for the book. Thus several usefulWeb tools have not been included.Readers are recommended to check the Glycoinformatics Consortium (GLIC) Web site at http://glic.glycoinfo.org/ to access the latest list of glycoinformatics databases and software tools. One major database that has not been included in this book is GlycomeDB. After discussion with the developer of this database, it was decided that GlyTouCan currently serves a similar role to that of GlycomeDB in that unique IDs are assigned and links to the same structures in other databases are provided. Moreover, all of the data in GlycomeDB has now been imported into GlyTouCan. Although it took much longer than expected to complete this book, it was with the hope of aiding in advancing the field of glycoscience that readers may find this book useful for their research.