EDITtoTrEMBL: a distributed approach to high-quality automated protein sequence annotation

Many databases in molecular biology face the problem that the ever increasi ng rate of data production can no longer be handled by traditional methods, especially human curation. Therefore, a number of projects are currently i nvestigating methods for automated sequence annotation. This paper describe s the EBI's approach to this problem for protein sequences by integration o f arbitrary analysis programs into a distributed and highly flexible enviro nment. Our software framework allows an individual treatment of sequences d epending on their particular properties, which is achieved through a high-l evel description of the preconditions and capabilities of analysing modules . This not only improves the overall performance of the annotation process, as unnecessary steps are avoided, but also enhances its quality since depe ndencies between different modules are taken into account. We have implemen ted a prototype and use it in the production of TrEMBL releases.