BRENDA and SILVA, two biological databases operated by ELIXIR Germany, have joined the list of ELIXIR Core Data Resources critically important for life science research.
The ELIXIR Core Data Resources serve as a mark of the highest quality in biological data provision and stewardship and play a fundamental role in the long-term preservation of life science data. The two new members have been added to the list, following their decision to adopt more open access licences. Both databases will become free for all users, including industry, with their next full release (expected in Autumn 2018).
Previously, the two databases used a dual licensing model whereby users from industry had to purchase a licence for any commercial use of the data. By opening their data to all users, BRENDA and SILVA will follow the licence recommendations for the ELIXIR Core Data Resources.
“Opening up biological data is very tangible impact of the ELIXIR Core Data Resources,” says Niklas Blomberg, ELIXIR Director. “Open Access is one of the fundamental principles of ELIXIR and it’s great to see that the Core Data Resources contribute to establishing sustainable and well as open data. Both BRENDA and SILVA are world leading resources in their field and I am very pleased to see them as part of the ELIXIR Core Data Resources.”
Alfred Pühler, the Head of ELIXIR Germany said: “It is an honour for us to see BRENDA and SILVA among the ELIXIR Core Data Resources and also a recognition of our work within the ELIXIR infrastructure. Since we joined ELIXIR in August 2016, we have focused on integrating our services into ELIXIR. With BRENDA and SILVA becoming ELIXIR Core Data Resources, we can accelerate this process and expand our collaboration with other ELIXIR Nodes.”
BRENDA is the world's largest and - with more than half a million users per year - one of the most widely used information system on all aspects of enzymes, including function, structure, mutants and properties (stability, purification, involvement in diseases and others). There are around 150 million data points in the database; the data are compiled manually from literature or through integration from sequence and structure databases and through calculation (genome annotation, membrane association, statistics).
SILVA is the European ribosomal RNA gene (rDNA) reference database. It is a comprehensive web resource for up to date, quality-controlled databases of small and large subunit aligned rDNA sequences from the Bacteria, Archaea and Eukaryota domains and supplementary online services. SILVA’s taxonomic tree and nomenclature is manually curated based on Bergey’s recommendations and expert references. SILVA takes special care to the consistent naming of clades of uncultivated (environmental) sequences where no validly described cultivated representative is available.
The ELIXIR Core Data Resources are a set of European life-science data resources (deposition archives and knowledgebases) that are of fundamental importance to biological and biomedical research and long-term preservation of biological data.
The initial list of the ELIXIR Core Data Resources was announced in July 2017, following a year-long evaluation and selection process.
Details on the selection criteria and the selection process for ELIXIR Core Data Resources are described in the F1000R ELIXIR channel article 'Identifying ELIXIR Core Data Resources'.