Help Page
ChemIDplus Lite

This database allows users to search compound identifiers such as chemical name or CAS Registry Number on the NLM ChemIDplus database of over 370,000 chemicals. Unlike the original ChemIDplus database, the Lite version does not allow structure searching and thus needs no plugins or special display software. Chemical structures are displayed as GIF images.

The Lite search page is available at http://chem2.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/chemidlite.jsp The page brings up a search page similar to other TOXNET search pages. Just type the name of a substance of interest to you, or its CAS Registry Number into the search box. Right truncation ("starts with") is available by using the asterisk (*) at the end of a search term. More advanced data and structure searching can be done at the main ChemIDplus page.

Search Input
For instance if you were interested in the drug "valium", type this into the search box and hit return. This is shown below:

The system will search the ChemIDplus database of over 1.3 million names and identifiers, and return the answer if available. For most chemicals this is one record and the system automatically retrieves that record. If multiple records were retrieved, a list of names would be shown.

Here is what would be retrieved for Valium:

The buttons on the left will allow retrieval of categories of detailed information, such as Names & Synonyms, Formulas, Classification Codes, Registry Numbers, and Notes.

In the center of the page, Locators for various resources are hyperlinked by an acronym, with a longer name on the right. The button may be clicked to give more information about a resource. There are three types of Locators:

• File Locator(s) that point to a set of NLM associated databases of interest
• Internet Locator(s) that point to a set of resources with biomedical data that are of interest for this chemical, and
• Superlist Locator(s) that point to a set of regulatory and scientific lists that contain information about this chemical.

Clicking on the Locator hyperlink will open a new window with data from a given resource, as close to the level of the substance as possible. An example for the Hazardous Substances Databank (HSDB) follows:

This "slave window" for external resources shows the Valium record in HSDB in this case. The window is reused each time you click on a new Locator, or data type such as Names & Synonyms. It will normally open in the foreground on the top left portion of your screen.

If you click on "Full Record" you retrieve a of list all data for Valium carried by ChemIDplus. This includes the image of the structure when available. Following is the data seen in this display, some data was edited out for this example:

Spell Checker

Chemical names are often hard to spell and tend to be phoneticized by users into an incorrect name. If you had mistakenly input the name of the compound above as "valeum", the system would not have been able to find it. The system would then have tried to find some near matches for you. As you can see, in this case this includes the correct "valium" name. Just click on one of these names to go to the appropriate record.

Conclusions

ChemIDplus Lite is designed to be quick and easy to use for looking up information on individual chemicals. Structure search requires the older version of ChemIDplus at http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus There is another advanced version of ChemIDplus being developed now, which will soon allow more sophisticated structure property searching. If you have any comments please send us email at tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov, or the following customer service number.