[Biopython] Host_organism field in SwissProt

[Peter]

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 4:25 PM, bar tomas <bartomas at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm using BioPython for processing protein sequences from SwissProt database.
> I'm following the excellent tutorial documentation on SwissProt querying (p.107)
> I'm just wondering about the meaning of the field 'host_organism' in a
> swissprot record, as I haven't yet found a record where the value of
> this field is supplied.
> If the record concerns the protein sequence of a bacteria, for
> instance, does the host_organism field contain a list of taxonomic ids
> of possible host organisms where the bacteria can be found?
> Many thanks

I suspect (without checking) that this field only applies to viruses
(or perhaps pathogens) and so will usually be empty.

Peter

P.S. Page numbers (and even section numbers) in the tutorial do
change from release to release - the section names are usually
stable.