PaperBLAST – Find papers about a protein or its homologs

 

PaperBLAST

PaperBLAST Hits for biolip::9c4g2 Cutibacterium acnes 50s ribosomal subunit with clindamycin bound () (67 a.a., PKMKSHSGTK...)

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:

9c4g2 / A0AAD0QKX2 Cutibacterium acnes 50s ribosomal subunit with clindamycin bound (see paper)
100% identity, 100% coverage

SCO1599 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2)
72% identity, 91% coverage

SCAB_73971 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Streptomyces scabiei 87.22
C9Z4H9 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Streptomyces scabiei (strain 87.22)
72% identity, 91% coverage

MSMEG_3792, MSMEI_3704 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Mycolicibacterium smegmatis MC2 155
A0QYU7 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Mycolicibacterium smegmatis (strain ATCC 700084 / mc(2)155)
MSMEG_3792 ribosomal protein L35 from Mycobacterium smegmatis str. MC2 155
51% identity, 94% coverage

MT1680 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis CDC1551
Rv1642 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv
MRA_1653 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Ra
52% identity, 94% coverage

7f0d3 / A5U2Z9 Cryo-em structure of mycobacterium tuberculosis 50s ribosome subunit bound with clarithromycin (see paper)
52% identity, 91% coverage

RL35_THET8 / Q5SKU1 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35; 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Thermus thermophilus (strain ATCC 27634 / DSM 579 / HB8) (see paper)
56% identity, 91% coverage

BAB1_2123 Ribosomal protein L35 from Brucella melitensis biovar Abortus 2308
49% identity, 91% coverage

cg1564 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032
NCgl1325 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032
52% identity, 90% coverage

CLIBASIA_01020 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus str. psy62
47% identity, 85% coverage

BL1366a 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Bifidobacterium longum NCC2705
48% identity, 91% coverage

RL35_DEIRA / Q9RSW6 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35; 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Deinococcus radiodurans (strain ATCC 13939 / DSM 20539 / JCM 16871 / CCUG 27074 / LMG 4051 / NBRC 15346 / NCIMB 9279 / VKM B-1422 / R1) (see 6 papers)
49% identity, 91% coverage

5dm63 / Q9RSW6 Crystal structure of the 50s ribosomal subunit from deinococcus radiodurans (see paper)
49% identity, 91% coverage

8buu3 / P55874 8buu3 (see paper)
44% identity, 94% 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
44% identity, 94% coverage

ruthe_01785 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Rubellimicrobium thermophilum DSM 16684
43% identity, 91% coverage

SMc00363 PROBABLE 50S RIBOSOMAL PROTEIN L35 from Sinorhizobium meliloti 1021
47% identity, 88% coverage

Q71YN4 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Listeria monocytogenes serotype 4b (strain F2365)
lmo1784 ribosomal protein L35 from Listeria monocytogenes EGD-e
39% identity, 93% coverage

A8JEP1 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
47% identity, 53% coverage

8uu97 / A0A660JIB9 8uu97 (see paper)
39% identity, 93% coverage

ISORED2_02500 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Acetobacterium wieringae
44% identity, 91% coverage

SYNW0058 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Synechococcus sp. WH 8102
38% identity, 91% coverage

RL35_RHOPA / Q6NDR5 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35; 50S ribosomal protein L35; RRP-L35 from Rhodopseudomonas palustris (strain ATCC BAA-98 / CGA009) (see paper)
RPA0039 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Rhodopseudomonas palustris CGA009
41% identity, 91% coverage

Q67W51 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Oryza sativa subsp. japonica
41% identity, 38% coverage

NGO0297 putative 50s ribosomal protein L35 from Neisseria gonorrhoeae FA 1090
NMB0722 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Neisseria meningitidis MC58
NGFG_00442 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Neisseria gonorrhoeae MS11
43% identity, 91% coverage

GBAA_4818 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Bacillus anthracis str. 'Ames Ancestor'
41% 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
40% identity, 93% coverage

SACOL1726 ribosomal protein L35 from Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus COL
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
EKM74_RS01860 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Staphylococcus aureus
42% identity, 93% coverage

CT834 L35 Ribosomal Protein from Chlamydia trachomatis D/UW-3/CX
36% identity, 91% coverage

5nrg3 / Q2FXQ0 The crystal structure of the large ribosomal subunit of staphylococcus aureus in complex with rb02 (see paper)
42% identity, 93% coverage

prpl35-1 / CAD24038.1 putative plastid ribosomal protein L35, partial from Zea mays (see paper)
41% identity, 47% coverage

CCNA_01098 LSU ribosomal protein L35P from Caulobacter crescentus NA1000
CC1046 ribosomal protein L35 from Caulobacter crescentus CB15
41% identity, 91% coverage

RK35_SPIOL / P23326 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35c; 50S ribosomal protein L35, chloroplastic; CL35 from Spinacia oleracea (Spinach) (see 2 papers)
39% identity, 35% coverage

Q9Z6R8 Large ribosomal subunit protein bL35 from Chlamydia pneumoniae
36% identity, 91% coverage

ssl1426 50S ribosomal protein L35 from Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803
43% 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 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