Under construction |
A list of all available web services end points is available at:
http://bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/
powered by the Swagger project.
The general structure of a CellBase RESTful call is:
http://HOST_URL/{version}/{species}/{category}/{subcategory}/{id}/{resource}?{filters}
Where HOST_URL is
http://bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest
Sections in braces are parameters, so they can be treated as variables.
Example:
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/feature/gene/BRCA2/info
As is explained later in this documentation, this RESTful WS will get all the information available for the gene BRCA2 in human using the latest version.
The available parameters are:
Indicate the CellBase version to retrieve information from. Versions are numbered as v1, v2, v3, v4, etc. At this moment the latest stable version is v4. However, the latest stable version will be always coded as latest.
Species to get information from. A list of the species available for version v3 can be found [[here | species-list]] Use the abbreviated code to indicate the species. For example, hsapiens for Homo sapiens or mmusculus for Mus musculus.
These parameters must be specified depending on the nature of your input data. For example, if we want to query CellBase by a genomic region (e.g. 13:32889575-32889763) we should use the genomic category and region subcategory. There are 4 main categories:
| Category | Description | Subcategories | |:-:|---|---| | Genomic | Genomic category makes reference to genomic coordinates | Position, Variant, Region | | Feature | Feature category involve all elements which have a defined location on the genome and provides an easy way to retrieve cross references for an ID | Gene, SNP, Transcript, Protein, Xref, ... | | Regulatory | Regulatory category refers to all regulatory interactions involving transcription factors and microRNAs | TFBSs, miRNAs | | Network | Network category makes reference to all types of networks and pathways, including the protein interactome, the regulatory network and Reactome | Pathway |
What the user wants to retrieve from the id. This is the query parameter, it is the feature or term about we want to retrieve the information (resource). Its type must correspond with the subcategory.
NOTE: In order to improve performance, ID lists can be passed together in only one REST call separated by commas. Only 200 IDs are allowed. For larger queries user the CellBase client.
Examples:
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/genomic/region/3:1000-200000,X:35-459000,4:2334-5555/gene
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/feature/gene/BRCA2,BCL2/snp
Each Category and Subcategory can have different resources and actions allowed. They specify the type of result we want to obtain from the ID.
Examples:
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/feature/gene/BRCA2/transcript
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/genomic/region/3:1000-200000/gene
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/genomic/region/3:100000-200000/snp
NOTE: Resources must always be written in singular.
Filters and extra options can be added at the end of the REST query followed by ?
. They are optional and can be combined using the &
sign. E.g:
These are the available filters and options:
output format
: coded as *of**, the only allowed value now is json (default), others such as protobuf are being developed. E.g.:
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/feature/gene/BRCA2/info?of=json
exclude
: name of the fields to be excluded in the output. E.g:
include
: name of the fields to be included in the output, the rest will be excluded. E.g:
limit
: maximum number of results to be returned. By default, all results are returned. E.g:
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/feature/gene/BRCA2/snp?limit=3
skip
: number of results to be skipped. By default, no result is omitted. E.g:
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/feature/gene/BRCA2/snp?skip=50
count
: get the number of results obtained. By default, false. E.g:
bioinfo.hpc.cam.ac.uk/cellbase/webservices/rest/latest/hsapiens/feature/gene/BRCA2/snp?count=true
cellbase/clients/python
.PyCellBase code can be accessed at https://github.com/opencb/cellbase/tree/develop/clients/python/pycellbase
.
The CellBaseClient class provides access to the different clients of the data we want to query (e.g. gene, transcript, variation, protein, genomic region, variant).
Each of these clients provide a set of methods to ask for the resources we want to retrieve. Most of these methods will need to be provided with comma-separated IDs or list of IDs. Optional filters and extra options can be added as key-value parameters.
Responses are retrieved as JSON formatted data. Therefore, fields can be queried by key.
If there is an available resource, but there is not an available method in this python package, the CellBaseClient class can be used to create the URL of interest. This class is able to access the RESTful Web Services through the get method it implements. In this case, this method needs to be provided with those parameters which are required by the URL: category (e.g. feature), subcategory (e.g. gene), ID to search for (e.g. BRCA1) and method to query (e.g. search).
Configuration data as host, API version, or species is stored in a ConfigClient object. A custom configuration can be passed to CellBaseClient with a ConfigClient object provided with a JSON or YML config file. If you want to change the configuration on the fly you can directly modify the ConfigClient object.
Please, find more details on how to use the python library at: Python client tutorial
PyCellBase can be cloned in your local machine by executing in your terminal:
$ git clone https://github.com/opencb/cellbase.git
Once you have downloaded the project you can install the library:
$ cd cellbase/clients/python
$ python setup.py install
(not available yet)
R library package is implemented and maintained for the latest R release and distributed through Bioconductor. For a quick install, please enter the R terminal and type:
source("https://bioconductor.org/biocLite.R")
biocLite("xxx")
The R code is also distributed together with the rest of the CellBase code. R code can be found at: cellbase/clients/R
The R code provides a library for programmatic access to CellBase data. No CLI is implemented in R.
Comprehensive description of the library is provided by the reference manual at Bioconductor:
https://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/manuals/xxxx
Likewise, detailed usage cases and tutorials are provided by Bioconductor Vignettes:
https://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/vignettes/xxx
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