PaperBLAST – Find papers about a protein or its homologs

 

PaperBLAST

PaperBLAST Hits for 59 a.a. (MKVKSAAKKR...)

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 29 similar proteins in the literature:

7ood1 / P75447 Mycoplasma pneumoniae 50s subunit of ribosomes in chloramphenicol- treated cells (see paper)
MPN116 ribosomal protein L35 from Mycoplasma pneumoniae M129
100% identity, 100% coverage

MHO_1280 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Mycoplasma hominis
61% identity, 95% coverage

GBAA_4818 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Bacillus anthracis str. 'Ames Ancestor'
63% identity, 82% coverage

RL35_BACSU / P55874 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35; 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Bacillus subtilis (strain 168) (see paper)
BSU28860 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Bacillus subtilis subsp. subtilis str. 168
58% identity, 89% coverage

8buu3 / P55874 8buu3 (see paper)
58% identity, 91% coverage

8uu97 / A0A660JIB9 8uu97 (see paper)
53% identity, 91% coverage

lmo1784 ribosomal protein L35 from Listeria monocytogenes EGD-e
Q71YN4 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Listeria monocytogenes serotype 4b (strain F2365)
53% identity, 89% coverage

EKM74_RS01860 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Staphylococcus aureus
P66276 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Staphylococcus aureus (strain N315)
Q6GG26 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Staphylococcus aureus (strain MRSA252)
SA1503 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus N315
SAV1679 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus Mu50
MW1623 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus MW2
SACOL1726 ribosomal protein L35 from Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus COL
56% identity, 89% coverage

5nrg3 / Q2FXQ0 The crystal structure of the large ribosomal subunit of staphylococcus aureus in complex with rb02 (see paper)
56% identity, 91% coverage

A4VVU6 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Streptococcus suis (strain 05ZYH33)
SSU05_1269 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Streptococcus suis 05ZYH33
57% identity, 88% coverage

D0R5D2 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Lactobacillus johnsonii (strain FI9785)
55% identity, 88% coverage

SPy0805 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Streptococcus pyogenes M1 GAS
57% identity, 83% coverage

Q3K0C9 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Streptococcus agalactiae serotype Ia (strain ATCC 27591 / A909 / CDC SS700)
56% identity, 82% coverage

azo1081 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Azoarcus sp. BH72
53% identity, 91% coverage

spr0862 50S Ribosomal protein L35 from Streptococcus pneumoniae R6
52% identity, 88% coverage

NMB0722 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Neisseria meningitidis MC58
NGO0297 putative 50s ribosomal protein L35 from Neisseria gonorrhoeae FA 1090
NGFG_00442 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Neisseria gonorrhoeae MS11
44% identity, 91% coverage

sync_0059 ribosomal protein L35 from Synechococcus sp. CC9311
42% identity, 91% coverage

F452_RS0103380 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Porphyromonas gulae DSM 15663
PGN_0964 probable 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Porphyromonas gingivalis ATCC 33277
PG0990 ribosomal protein L35 from Porphyromonas gingivalis W83
49% identity, 91% coverage

5myjB7 / A2RMR2 of 70S ribosome from Lactococcus lactis (see paper)
52% identity, 84% coverage

SYNW0058 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Synechococcus sp. WH 8102
42% identity, 91% coverage

BB0189 ribosomal protein L35 (rpmI) from Borrelia burgdorferi B31
41% identity, 89% coverage

MSMEG_3792 ribosomal protein L35 from Mycobacterium smegmatis str. MC2 155
A0QYU7 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Mycolicibacterium smegmatis (strain ATCC 700084 / mc(2)155)
MSMEG_3792, MSMEI_3704 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Mycolicibacterium smegmatis MC2 155
47% identity, 91% coverage

PD1914 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Xylella fastidiosa Temecula1
44% identity, 91% coverage

SG1420 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Sodalis glossinidius str. 'morsitans'
50% identity, 80% coverage

lpp2768 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Legionella pneumophila str. Paris
50% identity, 77% coverage

PA2742 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1
Q9I0A1 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (strain ATCC 15692 / DSM 22644 / CIP 104116 / JCM 14847 / LMG 12228 / 1C / PRS 101 / PAO1)
49% identity, 86% coverage

8cd15 / Q9I0A1 8cd15 (see paper)
49% identity, 87% coverage

ISORED2_02500 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Acetobacterium wieringae
42% identity, 88% coverage

BPSL1943 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Burkholderia pseudomallei K96243
BTH_I2593 ribosomal protein L35 from Burkholderia thailandensis E264
bglu_1g21500 Ribosomal protein L35 from Burkholderia glumae BGR1
41% identity, 91% 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 798,070 different protein sequences to 1,261,478 scientific articles. Searches against EuropePMC were last performed on May 12 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