The International Protein Index (IPI) is a defunct

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

launched in 2001 by the

European Bioinformatics Institute The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is an Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) which, as part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) family, focuses on research and services in bioinformatics. It is located on the Well ...

(EBI), and closed in 2011. Its purpose was to provide the

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

community with a resource that enables * accession numbers from a variety of

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

databases to be mapped * a complete set of proteins for a species i.e. a reference set In its last version, the IPI contained the complete reference sets for six animal species: ''

Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

'' (human), ''

Mus musculus Mus or MUS may refer to: Abbreviations * MUS, the NATO country code for Mauritius * MUS, the IATA airport code for Minami Torishima Airport * MUS, abbreviation for the Centre for Modern Urban Studies on Campus The Hague, Leiden University, Neth ...

'' (mouse), ''

Rattus norvegicus ''Rattus'' is a genus of muroid rodents, all typically called rats. However, the term rat can also be applied to rodent species outside of this genus. Species and description The best-known ''Rattus'' species are the black rat (''R. rattus'') ...

'' (rat), ''

Bos taurus Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

'' (cattle), ''

Gallus gallus The red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus'') is a tropical bird in the family Phasianidae. It ranges across much of Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. It was formerly known as the Bankiva or Bankiva Fowl. It is the species that gave rise to the ...

'' (chicken) and ''

Danio rerio The zebrafish (''Danio rerio'') is a freshwater fish belonging to the minnow family (Cyprinidae) of the order Cypriniformes. Native to South Asia, it is a popular aquarium fish, frequently sold under the trade name zebra danio (and thus often ...

'' (zebrafish); and one plant species: ''

Arabidopsis thaliana ''Arabidopsis thaliana'', the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small flowering plant native to Eurasia and Africa. ''A. thaliana'' is considered a weed; it is found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land. A winter a ...

'' (thale cress). The human, mouse and rat datasets were the first to be developed, combining information taken from the

Swiss-Prot UniProt is a freely accessible database of protein sequence and functional information, many entries being derived from genome sequencing projects. It contains a large amount of information about the biological function of proteins derived from ...

TrEMBL UniProt is a freely accessible database of protein sequence and functional information, many entries being derived from genome sequencing projects. It contains a large amount of information about the biological function of proteins derived from ...

Ensembl Ensembl genome database project is a scientific project at the European Bioinformatics Institute, which provides a centralized resource for geneticists, molecular biologists and other researchers studying the genomes of our own species and other v ...

and

RefSeq The Reference Sequence (RefSeq) database is an open access, annotated and curated collection of publicly available nucleotide sequences ( DNA, RNA) and their protein products. RefSeq was first introduced in 2000. This database is built by National ...

databases.

History

In 2001, when the IPI was launched, databases cataloguing human genes varied greatly and had few links between them. Since then, much more data has been produced giving a more complete picture and databases have collaborated to synchronize data. Currently many model organisms have a reference set of genes/proteins which are catalogued in

UniProt UniProt is a freely accessible database of protein sequence and functional information, many entries being derived from genome sequencing projects. It contains a large amount of information about the biological function of proteins derived from ...

respectively, as well as other species specific databases. Because of this redundancy, the IPI was retired in 2011. EBI advised users of its services to emplo
UniProtKB
accession numbers as their protein identifiers.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Archive of IPI releases @ EBI

European Bioinformatics Institute

UniProt
Biological databases Proteomics Databases in the United Kingdom Indexes Index (publishing) Data synchronization Science and technology in Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire District