Analysis Tool Web Services from the EMBL-EBI

TLDR

Since 2004, EMBL‑EBI has offered access to a wide array of databases and analysis tools through Web Services interfaces. The Web Services provide search, cross‑reference exploration, data retrieval in multiple formats, and analysis tools such as FASTA, BLAST, Clustal Omega, MUSCLE, InterProScan, and Phobius, accessible via REST/SOAP APIs and supported by sample clients and tutorials. Users are notified of improvements and updates through a range of methods.

Abstract

Since 2004 the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) has provided access to a wide range of databases and analysis tools via Web Services interfaces. This comprises services to search across the databases available from the EMBL-EBI and to explore the network of cross-references present in the data (e.g. EB-eye), services to retrieve entry data in various data formats and to access the data in specific fields (e.g. dbfetch), and analysis tool services, for example, sequence similarity search (e.g. FASTA and NCBI BLAST), multiple sequence alignment (e.g. Clustal Omega and MUSCLE), pairwise sequence alignment and protein functional analysis (e.g. InterProScan and Phobius). The REST/SOAP Web Services (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/webservices/) interfaces to these databases and tools allow their integration into other tools, applications, web sites, pipeline processes and analytical workflows. To get users started using the Web Services, sample clients are provided covering a range of programming languages and popular Web Service tool kits, and a brief guide to Web Services technologies, including a set of tutorials, is available for those wishing to learn more and develop their own clients. Users of the Web Services are informed of improvements and updates via a range of methods.