PaperBLAST – Find papers about a protein or its homologs

 

PaperBLAST

PaperBLAST Hits for DVU1367 (65 a.a., MFGIGFQELL...)

Other sequence analysis tools:

Find functional residues: SitesBLAST

Search for conserved domains

Find the best match in UniProt

Compare to protein structures

Predict transmenbrane helices: Phobius

Predict protein localization: PSORTb

Find homologs in fast.genomics

Fitness BLAST: loading...

Found 35 similar proteins in the literature:

GSU0781 twin-arginine translocation protein, TatA/E family from Geobacter sulfurreducens PCA
49% identity, 86% coverage

Hore_03820 twin-arginine translocation protein, TatA subunit from Halothermothrix orenii H 168
45% identity, 91% coverage

asl0845 hypothetical protein from Nostoc sp. PCC 7120
51% identity, 50% coverage

SSCH_170020 twin-arginine translocase TatA/TatE family subunit from Syntrophaceticus schinkii
51% identity, 33% coverage

slr1046 hypothetical protein from Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803
53% identity, 36% coverage

GSU0787 twin-arginine translocation protein, TatA/E family from Geobacter sulfurreducens PCA
45% identity, 78% coverage

ssl2823 hypothetical protein from Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803
43% identity, 63% coverage

YP_3271 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA from Yersinia pestis biovar Medievalis str. 91001
YPO3778 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA from Yersinia pestis CO92
YPTB0258 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis IP 32953
39% identity, 70% coverage

SL1344_3927 Sec-independent protein translocase subunit TatA from Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium str. SL1344
49% identity, 56% coverage

VP0098 TatA protein from Vibrio parahaemolyticus RIMD 2210633
49% identity, 58% coverage

A0KEF9 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA from Aeromonas hydrophila subsp. hydrophila (strain ATCC 7966 / DSM 30187 / BCRC 13018 / CCUG 14551 / JCM 1027 / KCTC 2358 / NCIMB 9240 / NCTC 8049)
45% identity, 71% coverage

TATA_PEA / Q9XH46 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TATA, chloroplastic; Protein THYLAKOID ASSEMBLY 4; Protein TWIN-ARGININE TRANSLOCATION A from Pisum sativum (Garden pea) (Lathyrus oleraceus) (see 9 papers)
44% identity, 33% coverage

TATA_ARATH / Q9LKU2 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TATA, chloroplastic; Protein THYLAKOID ASSEMBLY 4; Protein TWIN-ARGININE TRANSLOCATION A from Arabidopsis thaliana (Mouse-ear cress) (see paper)
TC 2.A.64.2.1 / Q9LKU2 Tha4, component of The chloroplast Tat translocase (cpTatC/Hcf106/Tha4) from Arabidopsis thaliana (Mouse-ear cress) (see paper)
T32B20.e / RF|NP_198227.1 AT5g28750 from Arabidopsis thaliana (see paper)
AT5G28750 thylakoid assembly protein, putative from Arabidopsis thaliana
44% identity, 31% coverage

WP_000508971 Sec-independent protein translocase subunit TatA from Vibrio cholerae
45% identity, 68% coverage

plu4410 Sec-independent protein translocase protein from Photorhabdus luminescens subsp. laumondii TTO1
40% identity, 64% coverage

VC0086 tatA protein from Vibrio cholerae O1 biovar eltor str. N16961
47% identity, 57% coverage

HBZC1_10870 twin-arginine translocase TatA/TatE family subunit from Helicobacter bizzozeronii CIII-1
49% identity, 45% coverage

LOC102583072 sec-independent protein translocase protein TATA, chloroplastic from Solanum tuberosum
34% identity, 38% coverage

TATA_MAIZE / Q9XFJ8 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TATA, chloroplastic; Protein THYLAKOID ASSEMBLY 4; Protein TWIN-ARGININE TRANSLOCATION A from Zea mays (Maize) (see 2 papers)
44% identity, 26% coverage

TatA / b3836 twin arginine protein translocation system - TatA protein from Escherichia coli K-12 substr. MG1655 (see 21 papers)
TatA / P69428 twin arginine protein translocation system - TatA protein from Escherichia coli (strain K12) (see 22 papers)
TATA_ECOLI / P69428 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA from Escherichia coli (strain K12) (see 9 papers)
CXG97_RS22995 Sec-independent protein translocase subunit TatA from Escherichia coli
NP_418280 twin arginine protein translocation system - TatA protein from Escherichia coli str. K-12 substr. MG1655
46% identity, 62% coverage

FPV33_RS18075 twin-arginine translocase subunit TatE from Klebsiella aerogenes
48% identity, 71% coverage

Q7UQP7 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA from Rhodopirellula baltica (strain DSM 10527 / NCIMB 13988 / SH1)
40% identity, 55% coverage

VVMO6_02901 Sec-independent protein translocase subunit TatA from Vibrio vulnificus MO6-24/O
42% identity, 83% coverage

YPO2597 sec-independent protein translocase protein from Yersinia pestis CO92
YPTB1090 sec-independent protein translocase protein from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis IP 32953
40% identity, 61% coverage

Shew185_0416 twin-arginine translocation protein, TatA/E family subunit from Shewanella baltica OS185
43% identity, 70% coverage

Q2MGW8 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA from Corynebacterium glutamicum
35% identity, 92% coverage

TC 2.A.64.1.3 / Q6ML26 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA, component of TatABCE from Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus (strain ATCC 15356 / DSM 50701 / NCIB 9529 / HD100)
Bd2196 twin-argine protein translocase component from Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus HD100
40% identity, 72% coverage

Dhaf_2560 twin-arginine translocation protein, TatA/E family subunit from Desulfitobacterium hafniense DCB-2
39% identity, 78% coverage

ATE50_RS18010 twin-arginine translocase TatA/TatE family subunit from Bacillus velezensis
42% identity, 92% coverage

SO4202, SO_4202 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatA from Shewanella oneidensis MR-1
42% identity, 55% coverage

msl1085 twin argininte translocase protein A from Mesorhizobium loti MAFF303099
38% identity, 68% coverage

A1S_0466 Sec-independent protein translocase protein from Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC 17978
IX87_RS16610 Sec-independent protein translocase subunit TatA from Acinetobacter baumannii
38% identity, 67% coverage

BSU17710 component of the twin-arginine pre-protein translocation pathway from Bacillus subtilis subsp. subtilis str. 168
NP_389654 component of the twin-arginine pre-protein translocation pathway from Bacillus subtilis subsp. subtilis str. 168
O31804 Sec-independent protein translocase protein TatAc from Bacillus subtilis (strain 168)
37% identity, 92% coverage

TC 2.A.64.1.3 / Q6MGQ8 Putative sec-independent protein translocase protein, component of TatABCE from Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus (strain ATCC 15356 / DSM 50701 / NCIB 9529 / HD100)
42% identity, 36% coverage

WD0152 mttA/Hcf106 family protein from Wolbachia endosymbiont of Drosophila melanogaster
31% identity, 85% coverage

New Search

For advice on how to use these tools together, see Interactive tools for functional annotation of bacterial genomes.

Statistics

The PaperBLAST database links 793,807 different protein sequences to 1,259,118 scientific articles. Searches against EuropePMC were last performed on March 13 2025.

How It Works

PaperBLAST builds a database of protein sequences that are linked to scientific articles. These links come from automated text searches against the articles in EuropePMC and from manually-curated information from GeneRIF, UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, BRENDA, CAZy (as made available by dbCAN), BioLiP, CharProtDB, MetaCyc, EcoCyc, TCDB, REBASE, the Fitness Browser, and a subset of the European Nucleotide Archive with the /experiment tag. Given this database and a protein sequence query, PaperBLAST uses protein-protein BLAST to find similar sequences with E < 0.001.

To build the database, we query EuropePMC with locus tags, with RefSeq protein identifiers, and with UniProt accessions. We obtain the locus tags from RefSeq or from MicrobesOnline. We use queries of the form "locus_tag AND genus_name" to try to ensure that the paper is actually discussing that gene. Because EuropePMC indexes most recent biomedical papers, even if they are not open access, some of the links may be to papers that you cannot read or that our computers cannot read. We query each of these identifiers that appears in the open access part of EuropePMC, as well as every locus tag that appears in the 500 most-referenced genomes, so that a gene may appear in the PaperBLAST results even though none of the papers that mention it are open access. We also incorporate text-mined links from EuropePMC that link open access articles to UniProt or RefSeq identifiers. (This yields some additional links because EuropePMC uses different heuristics for their text mining than we do.)

For every article that mentions a locus tag, a RefSeq protein identifier, or a UniProt accession, we try to select one or two snippets of text that refer to the protein. If we cannot get access to the full text, we try to select a snippet from the abstract, but unfortunately, unique identifiers such as locus tags are rarely provided in abstracts.

PaperBLAST also incorporates manually-curated protein functions:

Except for GeneRIF and ENA, the curated entries include a short curated description of the protein's function. For entries from BioLiP, the protein's function may not be known beyond binding to the ligand. Many of these entries also link to articles in PubMed.

For more information see the PaperBLAST paper (mSystems 2017) or the code. You can download PaperBLAST's database here.

Changes to PaperBLAST since the paper was written:

Many of these changes are described in Interactive tools for functional annotation of bacterial genomes.

Secrets

PaperBLAST cannot provide snippets for many of the papers that are published in non-open-access journals. This limitation applies even if the paper is marked as "free" on the publisher's web site and is available in PubmedCentral or EuropePMC. If a journal that you publish in is marked as "secret," please consider publishing elsewhere.

Omissions from the PaperBLAST Database

Many important articles are missing from PaperBLAST, either because the article's full text is not in EuropePMC (as for many older articles), or because the paper does not mention a protein identifier such as a locus tag, or because of PaperBLAST's heuristics. If you notice an article that characterizes a protein's function but is missing from PaperBLAST, please notify the curators at UniProt or add an entry to GeneRIF. Entries in either of these databases will eventually be incorporated into PaperBLAST. Note that to add an entry to UniProt, you will need to find the UniProt identifier for the protein. If the protein is not already in UniProt, you can ask them to create an entry. To add an entry to GeneRIF, you will need an NCBI Gene identifier, but unfortunately many prokaryotic proteins in RefSeq do not have corresponding Gene identifers.

References

PaperBLAST: Text-mining papers for information about homologs.
M. N. Price and A. P. Arkin (2017). mSystems, 10.1128/mSystems.00039-17.

Europe PMC in 2017.
M. Levchenko et al (2017). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gkx1005.

Gene indexing: characterization and analysis of NLM's GeneRIFs.
J. A. Mitchell et al (2003). AMIA Annu Symp Proc 2003:460-464.

UniProt: the universal protein knowledgebase.
The UniProt Consortium (2016). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gkw1099.

BRENDA in 2017: new perspectives and new tools in BRENDA.
S. Placzek et al (2017). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gkw952.

The EcoCyc database: reflecting new knowledge about Escherichia coli K-12.
I. M. Keeseler et al (2016). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gkw1003.

The MetaCyc database of metabolic pathways and enzymes.
R. Caspi et al (2018). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gkx935.

CharProtDB: a database of experimentally characterized protein annotations.
R. Madupu et al (2012). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gkr1133.

The carbohydrate-active enzymes database (CAZy) in 2013.
V. Lombard et al (2014). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gkt1178.

The Transporter Classification Database (TCDB): recent advances
M. H. Saier, Jr. et al (2016). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gkv1103.

REBASE - a database for DNA restriction and modification: enzymes, genes and genomes.
R. J. Roberts et al (2015). Nucleic Acids Research, 10.1093/nar/gku1046.

Deep annotation of protein function across diverse bacteria from mutant phenotypes.
M. N. Price et al (2016). bioRxiv, 10.1101/072470.

by Morgan Price, Arkin group
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory