About UniProt
The Universal Protein Resource (UniProt) is a comprehensive resource for protein sequence and annotation data. The UniProt databases are the UniProt Knowledgebase (UniProtKB), the UniProt Reference Clusters (UniRef), and the UniProt Archive (UniParc). The UniProt Metagenomic and Environmental Sequences (UniMES) database is a repository specifically developed for metagenomic and environmental data.
UniProt is a collaboration between the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the Protein Information Resource (PIR). Across the three institutes around 90 people are involved through different tasks such as database curation, software development and support.
EBI and SIB together used to produce Swiss-Prot and TrEMBL, while PIR produced the Protein Sequence Database (PIR-PSD). These two data sets coexisted with different protein sequence coverage and annotation priorities. TrEMBL (Translated EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Data Library) was originally created because sequence data was being generated at a pace that exceeded Swiss-Prot's ability to keep up. Meanwhile, PIR maintained the PIR-PSD and related databases, including iProClass, a database of protein sequences and curated families. In 2002 the three institutes decided to pool their resources and expertise and formed the UniProt consortium.
The UniProt consortium is headed by Rolf Apweiler (PI), Cathy Wu, and Ioannis Xenarios, supported by key staff, and receives valuable input from an independent Scientific Advisory Board.
Funding
UniProt is mainly supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant 1U41HG006104-01. Additional support for the EBI's involvement in UniProt comes from the European Commission (EC)'s SLING grant (226073) and from the NIH GO grant 2P41HG02273-07. UniProt activities at the SIB are additionally supported by the Swiss Federal Government through the Federal Office of Education and Science, and by the EC grants SLING (226073), GEN2PHEN (200754) and MICROME (222886-2). PIR's UniProt activities are also supported by the NIH grants 5R01GM080646-04, 3R01GM080646-04S2, 1G08LM010720-01, and 3P20RR016472-09S2, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant DBI-0850319.
Further information
- The Universal Protein Resource
Printable reference card for the UniProt databases
| Contact the UniProt consortium members | ||
|---|---|---|
EMBL OutstationEuropean Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) Wellcome Trust Genome Campus Hinxton Cambridge CB10 1SD United Kingdom Phone: (+44 1223) 494 444 Fax: (+44 1223) 494 468 |
SIB Swiss Institute of BioinformaticsCentre Medical Universitaire 1, rue Michel Servet 1211 Geneva 4 Switzerland Phone: (+41 22) 702 50 50 Fax: (+41 22) 702 58 58 |
Protein Information Resource (PIR)Georgetown University Medical Center 3300 Whitehaven Street NW Suite 1200 Washington, DC 20007 United States of America Phone: (+1 202) 687 1039 Fax: (+1 202) 687 0057) |