A Biological Term Based Information Retrieval Web Service that Assists the Understanding of Biology Literatures

At present, there are many professional terms and database record identifiers in biomedical literature. When a lot of unknown terms appear in the literature, it brings trouble in understanding the document. In this paper, a biological terminology information retrieval Web service was established. First, a terminology database was constructed, whose records were come from databases supported by BioWarehouse, as well as other biological databases. Then, the server side code of the Web service was developed to realize the searching and communication function, which transmit messages between client and server through HTTP and SOAP protocol. Based on the professional terminology database, this Web service can be used to query unknown biological terms appearing in literature and accurately show its explanations. It facilitates researchers to understand scientific literatures in biological field.