News from the ExPASy website

Service interruption July 30-31, 2010

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:38:22 +0200

Due to maintenance work, some ExPASy services (including HAMAP, ScanProsite, ProRule, Swiss-2DPAGE, World-2DPAGE) will be inaccessible from Friday July 30, 2010, 4pm to Saturday 31, 2010, 11pm GMT+2.

New proteomics data uploaded into the World-2DPAGE Repository

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:38:22 +0200

Data from recent publications has been added into the World-2DPAGE Repository. Currently, 131 maps for 20 species are available and queriable from the World-2DPAGE Portal.

Service interruption July 06, 2010

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:27:55 +0200

Due to maintenance work, the main ExPASy server will be inaccessible on Tuesday July 6, 2010 from 5pm to approximately 1am GMT+2. Please use one of our mirrors instead such as http://ca.expasy.org/.

New proteomics data uploaded into the World-2DPAGE Repository

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:54:22 +0200

Data from recent publications has been added into the World-2DPAGE Repository. Currently, 130 maps for 19 species are available and queriable from the World-2DPAGE Portal.

Protein Spotlight: A mind astray

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:32:02 +0200

He hadn't been able to dial the full number for some time. But he had told his family that the phone was out of order. Until one of his daughters realised that it was not the phone which was faulty but her father's memory. This is just one of the many manifestations of what could be the beginnings of Alzheimer's disease (AD). [more]

Protein Spotlight: A short story

Thu, 27 May 2010 15:17:28 +0200

When I was a child I remember seeing little girls and boys of my own age whose arms had not grown to their full length. There were not many but enough for me to find it almost normal. [more]

Service interruption May 27, 2010

Fri, 21 May 2010 14:26:42 +0200

Due to maintenance work, some ExPASy services (including HAMAP, ScanProsite, ProRule, Swiss-2DPAGE, World-2DPAGE) will be inaccessible on Thursday May 27, 2010 from 4am to approximately 9am GMT+2.

Protein Spotlight: love at first smell

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:11:29 +0200

The making of life is demanding. Take any form from fungus to bacteria, and plants to humans the creation of progeny does not just happen. It takes a lot of molecular dialogue to divide E.coli to two...[more]

New proteomics data uploaded into the World-2DPAGE Repository

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 19:11:29 +0200

New data from recent publications were uploaded into the World-2DPAGE Repository. Currently, 122 maps for 17 species are available and queriable from the World-2DPAGE Portal.

Protein Spotlight: A sickly smell

Thu, 23 Feb 2010 14:36:26 +0100

Words are not the only means of communication. Not only are they specific to the human species but there are many other ways of conveying messages, and - since the dawn of time - all kingdoms have shown great imagination in this area. [more]

New proteomics database linked from the World-2DPAGE Portal

Thu, 23 Feb 2010 12:03:31 +0100

The proteomics database UCD-2DPAGE from University College Dublin (Ireland) has been linked from the World-2DPAGE Portal. Currently, 120 maps for 17 species are available and queriable from this single interface.

New proteomics data uploaded into the World-2DPAGE Repository

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:55:21 +0100

New data from recent publications were uploaded into the World-2DPAGE Repository. Currently, 115 maps for 16 species are available from the World-2DPAGE Portal.

Protein Spotlight: mint condition

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:26:26 +0100

It is very likely that mint - and its close cousin menthol - is one of the most popular flavours or sensations known worldwide. Is there any population left on Earth that hasn't sucked a mint sweet or chewed on mint gum? [more]

Protein Spotlight Update: String of intrusion

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:10:42 GMT

When I was little, I used to wear small cotton shirts that were knitted by my grandmother. So? Well, onto them she sewed tiny nacre buttons you could never get hold of and which mesmerized me because of the different colours that shone off them depending on how you oriented them in the light. You can still find these buttons today but plastic ones have almost completely replaced them – and some even try to copy the lustre which is so particular to mother of pearl. What is it that makes pearl what it is known for? Aragonite. Aragonite is a calcium carbonate mineral and, very recently, scientists discovered a complex of three proteins in the pearl oyster Pinctada fucata, which seems to be at the heart of aragonite formation and orientation, and hence the famous sheen. [more]

Protein Spotlight Update: Darwin's dessert

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:10:42 GMT

Charles Darwin has been resting in Westminster Abbey since April 1882 and scientists have been wondering ever since what it was that he suffered from for most of his adult life. It is a well-known fact that the famous naturalist steered clear of many official gatherings and was barely able to defend his theory of evolution because of chronic ailments of all sorts which kept him from being the sociable man he may otherwise have been. Many have thought that the origin of his various complaints - which were as diverse as vomiting, severe headaches, palpitations, eczema and flatulence - were purely psychosomatic. Others have suggested that Darwin must have been afflicted by some kind of illness such as Chagas' disease or, more recently, Crohn's disease. What everyone seems to agree upon though is that Darwin was definitely suffering from a form of gastrointestinal disorder which may well have involved an inherited lactose intolerance. Lactose intolerance is brought about by the lack of the enzyme lactase which breaks down lactose, thus making it digestible. [more]

New proteomics tool: HCD/CID spectra merger

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:05:24 GMT

HCD/CID spectra merger is a tool to merge the peptide sequence-ion m/z range from CID spectra and the reporter-ion m/z range from HCD spectra into the appropriate single file, to be further used in identification and quantification search engines. [more]

Protein Spotlight Update: in like a shot

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:10:42 GMT

Making use of a tubular structure to inject something into something else is a widespread practice. Doctors use syringes to inject medicine into patients. Mammals use their reproductive organ to supply their female counterparts with semen. Wasps use their sting to insert venom into their enemy. And Encephalitozoon cuniculi uses a polar tube as a means to infect. E.cuniculi infects species throughout the animal kingdom. It does this by inserting a long tube into the host cell's membrane and injecting directly into the cytoplasm what it needs to proliferate. E.cuniculi is a parasitic unicellular eukaryote and thus cannot survive on its own. But the pathogen has to be able to recognise its host first. Scientists have discovered one protein - known as 'spore wall and anchoring disk complex protein EnP1' - which is found in the area from where the polar tube is thrust, and which is capable of binding to surface molecules on the host cell's membrane. Thus creating the cell to cell contact needed to trigger off infection. [more]

New proteomics data uploaded into the World-2DPAGE Repository

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:51:32 GMT

Data from recent publications have been uploaded by authors into the World-2DPAGE Repository. All together those data contribute to a virtual unique database with up to 113 reference maps for 16 species totalizing nearly 11900 identified spots, making the biggest gel-based proteomics dataset accessible from a single interface.

SwissVar, a new portal to human diseases and protein variants

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:04:23 GMT

SwissVar (http://www.expasy.org/swissvar/) is a portal which provides access to a comprehensive collection of Single Amino acid Polymorphisms (SAPs) and diseases in the UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot database via a unique search engine. Currently, over 58,000 variants and 3,292 diseases are annotated in the 20,332 human entries of UniProtKB (rel. 57.7). The SwissVar portal provides direct access to the UniProtKB entries and to the new and improved Swiss-Prot variant pages with numerous additional features on each variant.

Protein Spotlight Update: another dark horse

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:44:26 GMT

Life is sustained thanks to a continuous flow of chemistry within cells and between cells... [more]

ExPASy new layout

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:40:30 GMT

We have redesigned the website according to the new Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics standards. We hope it also improve navigation and readability.

Protein Spotlight Update: paint my thoughts

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:50:15 GMT

Drawing is probably not a talent the layman would normally associate with Science... [more]

GlycoSuiteDB is back online

Fri, 29 May 2009 15:16:53 GMT

We are pleased to announce the re-launch of GlycoSuiteDB, a curated and annotated glycan database, in open access on the ExPASy website. The current Release 8.0 contains 9436 entries, sourced from 864 references. The content of the database was transcribed as is but will expand again. Within the next months new data relative to bacterial sugars will be included.

SRS5 has been discontinued

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:21:50 GMT

Since the introduction of the new UniProt web site, our SRS5 implementation has become obsolete. We have discontinued this SRS service from today.