New gene families beta released, minor REST API change and search result improvements.

New gene families release (beta)

We have released a beta version of new, improved gene family pages. Our new gene family pages include family aliases, a family hierarchy map, a family text description and a graphical representation of protein domains for an example family member. Improvements include a searchable gene family index, the ability to browse through and download gene family hierarchies, and a unique numerical ID for each gene family. For a full description of the new gene family pages, please visit the Gene families (beta) help page. Please send us your feedback on these pages.

New look search results

We changed our search results to include not only the matching field type, but also the field itself with the query string highlighted within. We hope this makes the search result more understandable and clearer.

REST service: entrez_id and hgnc_id are now strings

In order to make it clear that the HGNC ID is officially HGNC:# rather than just number, we have changed the type associated with the hgnc_id field from an int to string and the resulting hgnc_id will have the “HGNC:” prefix. The entrez_id field has also changed to a string due to backend code reasons. We hope that this has not caused too much disruption to anyone using our REST service.