REGISTRY database abstracts

Chemical Abstracts Service Registry database, Scifinder, (March 2006). 

In the area of chemical literature information, the largest databases are produced by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) of the American Chemical Society (ACS). As detailed on their website (www.cas.org), their principal databases are the Chemical Abstracts database (CA) with 16 million document records (mainly abstracts of journal articles and other literature) and the REGISTRY database with more than 28 million substance records. In an earlier volume of this series, we discussed CAS s SciFinder software for mining these databases. SciFinder is a tool for helping people formulate queries and view hits. SciFinder does not have all the power and precision of the command-line query system of CAS s STN, a software system developed earlier to access these and other CAS databases. But with SciFinder being easy... 

CAS Registry Numbers are included in the printed Chemical Abstracts chemical substance and formula indexes and in the CAS databases. The full set of CAS Registry database information—structures, names, formulas, and ring data—is available for search and display through STN International. CAS Registry information is also available in CAS databases offered by other online system vendors. 

MARPAT contains up till now, in addition to the Registry database, 200,000 Markush structures. The CA abstract number and therefore the reference to the patent is mentioned with each structure. MARPAT is one of the only two information sources worldwide, which allow structure searching only in patents and ascertain the most obscure substance which could be concealed in a Markush structure. Without the support of computer programs the systematic interpretation of Markush structures would often be impossible. The second database, which offers similar possibilities, is Markush DARC (Sect. 7.8). 

The Chemical Abstracts, CASREACT, MARPAT and Registry databases offer learning files. Their acronyms are preceded by an L. Every learning file contains a small segment of the respective main database. The beginner, who is not familiar with the specific contents of the databases is invited to exercise search strategy and retrieval commands here at low cost. 

The U.S. government, a primary sponsor of scientific and technological developments that fostered the computer and communications technologies needed by the on-line database industry, also sponsored database development projects, information usage studies, and combined computer database development—usage projects. The successors of some of these projects continue to be prominent and include DIALOG, MEDLINE, BRS, LEXIS, and the Chemical Abstracts Registry System. 

Chemical Abstracts and GAS Registry. CAS is especially notable for the thoroughness and high quaUty of its products. The CAS Registry system does a superb job of identifying any chemical that is either involved in new chemistry with hard data, or, since about 1980, specifically claimed in a patent. The MARPAT database has also led CAS to identify the perhaps nonexistent but prophetic substances covered by Markush claims in patents. 

Chemical Abstracts Service produces the world s largest and most comprehensive databases of chemical information. Principal databases, CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS (CA) and REGISTRY, include nearly 16 million abstracts of chemistry-related literature and patents and more than 30 million substance records respectively. 

CAS Chemical Abstracts Service registry number. It is unique for each chemical without inherent meaning that and is assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society. It allows for efficient searching of computerized databases. 

SciFinder at http //www.cas.org/SCIFINDER/scicover2.html is an easy-to-use desktop research tool that allows the user to explore research topics, browse scientific journals, and access information on the most recent scientific developments. SciFinder Scholar is a desktop research tool designed especially for use by students and faculty to easily access the information in the CAS databases. With either tool, one can search Chemical Abstracts and the CA Registry by author name, research topic, substance identifier, chemical structure, or chemical reaction. 

Walker data set — Walker et al., developed a database that contains a large and diverse collection of known pesticides and industrial chemicals, as well as some food additives and drugs (Walker et al., 2003). The database contains 92,964 Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) Registry numbers of chemicals that will probably have to be evaluated for their potential endocrine disruption. A final data set of 58,391 chemicals was processed by our system after eliminating those chemicals for which structures were not available (Walker et al., 2003) and/or 3D structures could not be generated (Hong et al., 2002). 

---