Advanced programmatic access to UniProt using Python

UniProt is a comprehensive, expert-led, publicly available database of protein sequence, function and variation information.

This webinar will give a detailed description of programmatic access to the UniProt database using Python and cover key aspects of the different UniProt APIs, data filtering of protein entry information, and give examples of further processing of downloaded target data.

Following a brief introduction to UniProt services, the webinar will focus on worked examples. These will include how to programmatically search data for isoform-specific information and filter using evidence codes. We will show how to align orthologous sequences and filter within the results for features of interest.

Through specific examples we will cover the different APIs that UniProt provides and highlight their differences and advantages.

This webinar builds on the introduction to programmatic access given in our previous webinar: ‘Accessing UniProt programmatically for students’

The Google Colab used during the webinar is avaiable at the end of the slides ("Access materielas" button)

Who is this course for?

This webinar is aimed at life science computational and wet-lab scientists that would find programmatic access to the UniProt database useful. A moderate proficiency in Python is required, however the webinar will cover principles which can be applied to other programming languages. An undergraduate level knowledge of protein biology will be useful.

For a more general overview of UniProt please see our recorded webinar: ‘A guide to UniProt for students.’

For a detailed explanation of our protein analysis tools please see the recorded webinar: ‘Advanced search in UniProt and sequence analysis tools’.

Outcomes

By the end of the webinar you will be able to:

• Identify the different routes to access UniProt data and know how to pick the most appropriate for your workflow
• Explain the links between UniProt services such as UniProtKB and UniParc
• Find documentation and useful help to guide your programmatic access
• Filter entries by annotation types and other target characteristics

DOI: TOL.api-uniprot-w.2026.00001.1