Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Medicine, The George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, 2300 I Street NW, Washington, DC 20037, USA.
Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Delaware, Smith Hall, 18 Amstel Ave Newark, DE 19716, USA.
Glycobiology. 2023 Jun 3;33(5):354-357. doi: 10.1093/glycob/cwad014.
Recent technological advances in glycobiology have resulted in a large influx of data and the publication of many papers describing discoveries in glycoscience. However, the terms used in describing glycan structural features are not standardized, making it difficult to harmonize data across biomolecular databases, hampering the harvesting of information across studies and hindering text mining and curation efforts. To address this shortcoming, the Glycan Structure Dictionary has been developed as a reference dictionary to provide a standardized list of widely used glycan terms that can help in the curation and mapping of glycan structures described in publications. Currently, the dictionary has 190 glycan structure terms with 297 synonyms linked to 3,332 publications. For a term to be included in the dictionary, it must be present in at least 2 peer-reviewed publications. Synonyms, annotations, and cross-references to GlyTouCan, GlycoMotif, and other relevant databases and resources are also provided when available. The purpose of this effort is to facilitate biocuration, assist in the development of text mining tools, improve the harmonization of search, and browse capabilities in glycoinformatics resources and help to map glycan structures to function and disease. It is also expected that authors will use these terms to describe glycan structures in their manuscripts over time. A mechanism is also provided for researchers to submit terms for potential incorporation. The dictionary is available at https://wiki.glygen.org/Glycan_structure_dictionary.
糖生物学领域的最新技术进展带来了大量的数据，并发表了许多描述糖科学发现的论文。然而，用于描述聚糖结构特征的术语并未标准化，这使得难以在生物分子数据库之间协调数据，阻碍了跨研究的信息收集，并阻碍了文本挖掘和管理工作。为了解决这一不足，已经开发了《聚糖结构词典》作为参考词典，提供了广泛使用的聚糖术语的标准化列表，有助于管理和映射文献中描述的聚糖结构。目前，该词典有 190 个聚糖结构术语，有 297 个同义词与 3332 篇文献相关联。一个术语要被包括在词典中，它必须至少出现在 2 篇同行评议的出版物中。当有可用的同义词、注释和交叉引用到 GlyTouCan、GlycoMotif 以及其他相关数据库和资源时，也会提供这些内容。这项工作的目的是促进生物管理，协助开发文本挖掘工具，提高糖生物信息学资源中搜索和浏览功能的协调性，并帮助将聚糖结构映射到功能和疾病上。随着时间的推移，作者也有望使用这些术语来描述论文中的聚糖结构。还为研究人员提供了提交潜在术语以进行纳入的机制。该词典可在 https://wiki.glygen.org/Glycan_structure_dictionary 上获得。
