SEARCHING FOR PROTEIN SEQUENCES IN CAS ONLINE

Research in molecular genetics and other related fields has been growing rapidly in the past several years. This growth is reflected in an increased number of publications and reported biosequences in this area. The Human Genome Project will contribute further to the growth and accumulation of this information in the near future. In response to a need by the scientific community and other agencies for a biosequence data-base that is easily searchable, Chemical Abstracts Service(R) (CAS) has been working on improving the search and retrieval of the protein and nucleic acid sequences it has registered. Good progress has been made in the enhancement of the protein data. CAS registration of biosequences dates back to 1957. These sequences have been indexed from biochemical and molecular genetics journals, patents, and symposia proceedings from all over the world. Currently there are 160,000 protein sequences in the CAS Registry File, including those that are naturally occurring, synthetic, chemically modified, and genetically engineered. The first phase of the protein data search and retrieval enhancement was released on STN International on September 30, 1990. Other enhancements to increase search flexibility are now being investigated. An introduction to online searching for protein sequences in the CAS Registry File will be presented. Current search algorithms will also be discussed.