3DINSIGHT - AN INTEGRATED RELATIONAL DATABASE AND SEARCH TOOL FOR THESTRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND PROPERTIES OF BIOMOLECULES

Motivation: Although a large amount of information on the structure, f unction and properties of biomolecules is becoming available, it is di fficult to understand the relationship between them. Thus, we have att empted to create an integrated relational database, search and visuali zation tool, 3 DinSight, to help researchers to gain insight into thei r relationship. Results: We have gather-ed data on the structure, func tion and properties of biomolecules, and implemented them into a relat ional database system. The structural data contain sever al subset dat a such as protein homologues, protein-DNA complex, in oi-del to enable searching within a specific class of data. The functional data includ e motif sequence and mutation data of proteins. Also, various amino ac id properties are implemented as a relational table. The World Wide We b (WWW) interfaces enable users to carry our various kinds of searches among these data. The locations of motif sequences and mutations are automatically mapped on the structure, and visualized in three-dimensi onal (3D) space by inter-active viewers, VRML (Virtual Reality Modelin g Language) and RasMol. In the case of VRML, the mapped 3D objects are hyperlinked to the corresponding document data. Also, amino acid prop er-ties, linked with structure, functional and mutation sites, can be displayed as graph plots.