Stielow Bastian, Simon Clara, Liefke Robert
Institute of Molecular Biology and Tumor Research (IMT), Philipps University of Marburg, 35043 Marburg, Germany.
Department of Hematology, Oncology and Immunology, University Hospital Giessen and Marburg, 35043 Marburg, Germany.
Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2021 May 14;19:3027-3033. doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2021.04.052. eCollection 2021.
In recent years, the amount of available literature, data and computational tools has increased exponentially, providing opportunities and challenges to make use of this vast amount of material. Here, we describe how we utilized publicly available information to identify the previously hardly characterized protein SAMD1 (SAM domain-containing protein 1) as a novel unmethylated CpG island-binding protein. This discovery is an example, how the richness of material and tools on the internet can be used to make scientific breakthroughs, but also the hurdles that may occur. Specifically, we discuss how the misrepresentation of SAMD1 in literature and databases may have prevented an earlier characterization of this protein and we address what can be learned from this example.
近年来，可用文献、数据和计算工具的数量呈指数级增长，这为利用这些海量资料带来了机遇与挑战。在此，我们描述了我们如何利用公开可用信息，将此前几乎未被表征的含SAM结构域蛋白1（SAMD1）鉴定为一种新型的未甲基化CpG岛结合蛋白。这一发现例证了互联网上丰富的资料和工具如何能够用于实现科学突破，同时也展示了可能出现的障碍。具体而言，我们讨论了文献和数据库中SAMD1的错误表述可能如何阻碍了对该蛋白的早期表征，并探讨了能从这个例子中学到什么。
