Overview of biological database mapping services for interoperation between different 'omics' datasets

Many primary biological databases are dedicated to providing annotation for a specific type of biological molecule such as a clone, transcript, gene or protein, but often with limited cross-references. Therefore, enhanced mapping is required between these databases to facilitate the correlation of independent experimental datasets. For example, molecular biology experiments conducted on samples (DNA, mRNA or protein) often yield more than one type of 'omics' dataset as an object for analysis (eg a sample can have a genomics as well as proteomics expression dataset available for analysis). Thus, in order to map the two datasets, the identifier type from one dataset is required to be linked to another dataset, so preventing loss of critical information in downstream analysis. This identifier mapping can be performed using identifier converter software relevant to the query and target identifier databases. This review presents the publicly available web-based biological database identifier converters, with comparison of their usage, input and output formats, and the types of available query and target database identifier types.