Can bibliographic pointers for known biological data be found automatically? Protein interactions as a case study
2001

Finding Biological Data Automatically

Sample size: 851 publication Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Christian Blaschke, Alfonso Valencia

Primary Institution: National Centre for Biotechnology, CNB-CSIC

Hypothesis

Can bibliographic pointers for known biological data be found automatically?

Conclusion

The study found that only 30% of known protein interactions could be linked to supporting sentences in Medline abstracts.

Supporting Evidence

  • Only 30% of the known protein interactions had corresponding sentences in Medline abstracts.
  • The study identified new relations between proteins that were not previously documented.
  • Problems with protein name standardization complicated the identification process.
  • Many interactions were not explicitly mentioned in the abstracts, making them undetectable.

Takeaway

The researchers tried to find connections between proteins using computer searches of scientific papers, but they only found links for about one in three interactions.

Methodology

The study used information retrieval technology to search Medline abstracts for sentences that support known protein interactions.

Limitations

The main limitations were the lack of standard protein names and the analysis of abstracts instead of full papers.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1002/cfg.91

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