Editing Biological database (section)

{{Short description|Database of biological information}}
[[File:String home page.png|thumb|Home page of a biological database called characterises functional links between proteins<ref name="pmid21045058">{{cite journal |author=Szklarczyk D|author2=Franceschini A|author3=Kuhn M|title=The STRING database in 2011: functional interaction networks of proteins, globally integrated and scored |journal=Nucleic Acids Res. |volume=39 |issue=Database issue |pages=D561–8 |date=January 2011 |pmid=21045058 |pmc=3013807 |doi=10.1093/nar/gkq973 |display-authors=etal}}</ref>|350 px|right]]
'''Biological databases''' are libraries of biological sciences, collected from scientific experiments, published literature, high-throughput experiment technology, and computational analysis.{{Citation needed|date=December 2019|reason=removed citation to predatory publisher content}}  They contain information from research areas including [[genomics]], [[proteomics]], [[metabolomics]], [[microarray]] gene expression, and [[phylogenetics]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=Altman RB |title=Building successful biological databases |journal=Brief. Bioinformatics |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=4–5 |date=March 2004 |pmid=15153301 |doi= 10.1093/bib/5.1.4|doi-access=free }}</ref> Information contained in biological databases includes gene function, structure, localization (both cellular and chromosomal), clinical effects of mutations as well as similarities of biological sequences and structures.

Biological databases can be classified by the '''kind of data''' they collect (see below). Broadly, there are molecular databases (for sequences, molecules, etc.), functional databases (for physiology, enzyme activities, phenotypes, ecology etc), taxonomic databases (for species and other taxonomic ranks), images and other media, or specimens (for museum collections etc.)

Databases are important tools in assisting scientists to analyze and explain a host of biological phenomena from the structure of [[biomolecule]]s and their interaction, to the whole [[metabolism]] of organisms and to understanding the [[evolution]] of [[species]]. This knowledge helps facilitate the fight against diseases, assists in the development of [[medication]]s, predicting certain genetic diseases and in discovering basic relationships among species in the [[evolutionary timeline|history of life]].