The 24th annual Nucleic Acids Research database issue: a look back and upcoming changes

This year’s Database Issue of Nucleic Acids Research contains 152 papers that include descriptions of 54 new databases and update papers on 98 databases, of which 16 have not been previously featured in NAR. As always, these databases cover a broad range of molecular biology subjects, including genome structure, gene expression and its regulation, proteins, protein domains, and protein– protein interactions. Following the recent trend, an increasing number of new and established databases deal with the issues of human health, from cancercausing mutations to drugs and drug targets. In accordance with this trend, three recently compiled databases that have been selected by NAR reviewers and editors as ‘breakthrough’ contributions, DENOVODB, the Monarch Initiative, and Open Targets, cover human de novo gene variants, disease-related phenotypes in model organisms, and a bioinformatics platform for therapeutic target identification and validation, respectively. We expect these databases to attract the attention of numerous researchers working in various areas of genetics and genomics. Looking back at the past 12 years, we present here the ‘golden set’ of databases that have consistently served as authoritative, comprehensive, and convenient data resources widely used by the entire community and offer some lessons on what makes a successful database. The Database Issue is freely available online at the https://academic.oup. com/nar web site. An updated version of the NAR Molecular Biology Database Collection is available at http: //www.oxfordjournals. org/nar/database/a/. NEW AND UPDATED DATABASES The current 2017 Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue is the 24th annual collection of bioinformatic databases on various areas of molecular biology. It includes 152 papers, of which 54 describe newly created databases (Table 1), 82 papers provide updates on the databases that have been previously described in NAR and 16 contain updates on the databases whose descriptions have previously been published elsewhere (Table 2). As previously, the issue is organized according to subject categories covering (i) nucleic acid sequence and structure, transcriptional regulation; (ii) protein sequence and structure; (iii) metabolic and signaling pathways, protein– protein interactions; (iv) genomics of viruses, bacteria, protozoa and fungi; (v) genomics of human and model organisms; (vi) human diseases and drugs; (vii) plants and (viii) other topics, such as proteomics databases. Unsurprisingly, many resources straddle multiple categories and defy easy classification so we encourage readers to browse the whole issue, not limiting themselves to a single section. The databases listed in the Nucleic Acids Research online Molecular Biology Database Collection, which is available at http://www.oxfordjournals. org/nar/database/a/, are split into the same 15 categories and 41 subcategories as before. In this year’s issue, the usual annual survey of the progress in databases held by the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), is supplemented by a report from the Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, on their BIG Data Center which hosts a variety of genomic databases. [Because of the high number of references to the databases in the NAR ‘golden set’ (Table 3), we could not properly cite most of the papers included in the current Database Issue. Please refer to this issue’s Table of