The WhichGenes API allows programmers to access WhichGenes functionalities in a programmatic way, through a RESTful Web Service. Using this service, the server can be accessed from multiple programming languages, allowing researchers to wire WhichGenes results to their experiments. At this time, the API offers the gene retrieval operations, including data sources listing, catalog listing and query execution.
Like any RESTful Web Service, operations are performed via web queries with a well-defined URL structure. The server API is located at http://www.whichgenes.org/api/
Lists all data sources that the server can access at this moment. The URL is:
http://www.whichgenes.org/api/sources
There are two types of data sources: free-text query data sources and constrained query data sources. The latter only accept a closed set of query terms. These terms are listed when no query is given. So an example of this listing can be seen at:
http://www.whichgenes.org/api/sources/homosapiens_KEGGPathway/
Executing a query on a data source is performed via:
http://www.whichgenes.org/api/sources/{datasource}/{query}
In the case of free-text query data sources this URL could be an example:
http://www.whichgenes.org/api/sources/homosapiens_DiseasesCTD/leukemia
In the case of constrained query data sources, the {query} must be a valid id, or a comma separated list of ids, of the catalog. This URL could be an example:
http://www.whichgenes.org/api/sources/homosapiens_KEGGPathway/path:hsa00010,path:hsa05130
Getting the available namespaces for conversion of genesets is done via
http://www.whichgenes.org/api/basket/namespaces
Getting the sets of a given user in his basket is done via:
http://www.whichgenes.org/api/basket/{username}/genesets?password={user_password}
Getting the available namespaces for conversion of genesets is done via
http://www.whichgenes.org/api/basket/{username}/{geneset}?password={password}&namespace={namespace}
The namespace is optional. By default human genesets are given in HGNC Symbol and mouse genesets are given in MGI-Symbol