The browsable database can allow for high-throughput analysis of protein
sequences. One helpful feature may be a simplified ontology of protein
function, which allows browsing of the database by biological functions.
Biologist curators may have associated the ontology terms with Hidden
Markov Models (HMMs), rather than individual sequences, so that they can
be applied to additional sequences. To ensure accurate functional
classification, HMMs may be constructed not only for families, but for
curator-defined subfamilies, whenever family members have divergent
functions or nomenclature. Multiple sequence alignments and phylogenetic
trees, including curator-assigned information, can be available for each
family. Various versions of the browsable database may include training
sequences from all organisms in the GenBank non-redundant protein
database, and the HMMs can be used to classify gene products across the
entire genomes of human, and Drosophila melanogaster.
