The Open Medical Informatics Journal

2011, 5 : 9-16
Published online 2011 April 19. DOI: 10.2174/1874431101105010009
Publisher ID: TOMINFOJ-5-9

RESEARCH ARTICLE
 GlycomicsDB - A Data Integration Platform for Glycans and their Strucutres

Mahesh Visvanathan, *,1 , Sasidhar R Siddam1 , In-Hee Lee1 , Gerald H Lushington1 and George R Bousfield2
1 Bioinformatics Core Facility, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047, USA
2 Department of Biological Sciences, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260, USA

* Address correspondence to this author at the Bioinformatics Core Facility, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047, USA; Tel/Fax: 785-864-337; E-mail: mvisvanathan@ku.edu

ABSTRACT

Glycomics is a discipline of biology that deals with the structure and function of glycans (or carbohydrates). Analytical techniques such as mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) are having a significant impact on the field of glycomics. However, effective progress in glycomics research requires collaboration between laboratories to share experimental data, structural information of glycans, and simulation results. Herein we report the development of a web-based data management system that can incorporate large volumes of data from disparate sources and organize them into a uniform format for users to store and access. This system enables participating laboratories to set up a shared data repository which members of interdisciplinary teams can access. The system is able to manage and share raw MS data and structural information of glycans.

The database is available at http://www.glycomics.bcf.ku.edu

Keywords:

Functional glycomics, web-based data management system, mass spectrometry data, glycan structure.