Goals:

• Provide a free and open information resource focused on DNA polymerases
• Extract primary results from published and unpublished sources
• Present results in context, without editorial bias, verified by authors
• Create a polymerase-centric information hub by connecting with other protein resources (PubMed, PDB, UniProt, etc.)
• Be responsive to community suggestions
• Remain current by automatically identifying newly published papers
• Sustainability! By engaging the polymerase research community we can produce a valuable resource with minimal effort from any individual contributor

Background:

The DNA Polymerase Database (Polbase) is intended to compile the wealth of existing DNA Polymerase information from public and private records into an open, searchable database. It supplements existing resources:

See the Polbase FAQs for more information.

Polbase is an open database provided to benefit the scientific community. Adaptation or distribution of information from Polbase should also remain open and accessible to the public. If you include or otherwise utilize Polbase information in or for your work, please cite the latest publication:

Langhorst, Bradley W, William E Jack, Linda Reha-Krantz, and Nicole M Nichols. “Polbase: A Repository of Biochemical, Genetic and Structural Information about DNA Polymerases.” Nucleic Acids Research 40, no. Database issue (2012): D381-7..

Almost all resources are available in both human-readable HTML renderings as well as XML and JSON encodings for consumption by other software. To request a document in another format, simply append “.xml” or ".json" to the URL (e.g. for all polymerases, /polymerases.xml).

To report problems with Polbase or request new features, please contact us or submit your issue directly at polbase-help.

Polbase was built by Brad Langhorst and Nicole Nichols using the following technologies and other tools too numerous to list here:

• Ruby and Rails
• jQuery and DataTables for interactivity.