Deafness mutation mining using regular expression based pattern matching

Christopher M Frenz

Department of Computer Engineering Technology, New York City College of Technology (CUNY), 300 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA

author email corresponding author email

BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2007, 7:32doi:10.1186/1472-6947-7-32


Published:	25 October 2007

Abstract

Background

While keyword based queries of databases such as Pubmed are frequently of great utility, the ability to use regular expressions in place of a keyword can often improve the results output by such databases. Regular expressions can allow for the identification of element types that cannot be readily specified by a single keyword and can allow for different words with similar character sequences to be distinguished.

Results

A Perl based utility was developed to allow the use of regular expressions in Pubmed searches, thereby improving the accuracy of the searches.

Conclusion

This utility was then utilized to create a comprehensive listing of all DFN deafness mutations discussed in Pubmed records containing the keywords "human ear".