<p>Description of how to use biomaRt <a href="http://www.ensembl.org/info/data/biomart/biomart_r_package.html" rel="noreferrer">here</a>. Filter by your list of gene IDs. Get the descriptions etc as attributes. Eg:</p>

<pre><code>&gt; library(biomaRt)
&gt; ensembl = useEnsembl(biomart="ensembl", dataset="hsapiens_gene_ensembl")
&gt; IDs &lt;- c("BRCA2","BRAF")
genedesc &lt;- getBM(attributes=c('external_gene_name','description'), filters = 'external_gene_name', values = IDs, mart =ensembl)
&gt; genedesc
  external_gene_name                                                                      description
1               BRAF B-Raf proto-oncogene, serine/threonine kinase [Source:HGNC Symbol;Acc:HGNC:1097]
2              BRCA2                  BRCA2, DNA repair associated [Source:HGNC Symbol;Acc:HGNC:1101]
</code></pre>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-16T15:25:44.523Z
Thank you for the answer. I did not find a way to return detailed information  using biomaRt. The description fields are just extended gene names.
Peter
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-16T09:44:18.097Z
2017-10-16T09:44:18.097Z
Emily_Ensembl
<p>The easiest and fastest method (which also doesn’t require internet access) is to use <a href="http://bioconductor.org/packages/3.9/bioc/vignettes/AnnotationDbi/inst/doc/IntroToAnnotationPackages.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">annotation packages</a>, e.g. <a href="http://bioconductor.org/packages/3.9/data/annotation/html/org.Mm.eg.db.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">org.Mm.eg.db</a>:</p>

<pre><code>library(AnnotationDbi)
library(org.Mm.eg.db)


# 1:1 mapping symbol→entrez
entrez_ids &lt;- mapIds(org.Mm.eg.db, gene_symbols, 'ENTREZ', 'SYMBOL')

# 1:n mapping symbol→…
print(columns(org.Mm.eg.db))  # check what you can query
df &lt;- select(org.Mm.eg.db, gene_symbols, c(...), 'SYMBOL')
</code></pre>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-08-14T11:27:34.750Z
2019-08-14T11:27:34.750Z
flying sheep
<h2>MyGene.info</h2>

<p>Using the <a href="https://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/mygene.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">R package</a> for the <a href="http://mygene.info" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MyGene.info database</a>:</p>

<pre><code>source("https://bioconductor.org/biocLite.R")
biocLite("mygene")

library(mygene)
gene &lt;- getGene("1017", fields="all")
gene$summary
</code></pre>

<p>Multiple genes:</p>

<pre><code>gene &lt;- getGenes(c(1347:1350), fields="summary")
</code></pre>

<hr>

<h2>Entrez database</h2>

<pre><code>library(devtools)
install_github("ropensci/rentrez")

library(rentrez)
genes &lt;- entrez_summary(db="gene", id=c(718,720))
genes$`720`$summary
</code></pre>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-16T06:56:20.437Z
Nice question (and answer, I didn't know about MyGene), if you know what you are looking for maybe it is worth to mention biomaRt
llrs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-14T16:31:35.103Z
2018-01-18T13:43:09.873Z
2018-01-18T13:43:09.873Z
Peter
<p>Given a list of gene IDs, how do you retrieve the gene description, summary and other detailed information in R?</p>

<r><gene><sequence-annotation><public-databases>
Retrieve detailed gene descriptions
# Retrieve detailed gene descriptions

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-10-14)

Given a list of gene IDs, how do you retrieve the gene description, summary and other detailed information in R?

**Tags:** r, gene, sequence-annotation, public-databases

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_0 on 2017-10-14. Score: 7 | Accepted answer

MyGene.info
Using the R package for the MyGene.info database:
source("https://bioconductor.org/biocLite.R")
biocLite("mygene")

library(mygene)
gene <- getGene("1017", fields="all")
gene$summary

Multiple genes:
gene <- getGenes(c(1347:1350), fields="summary")


Entrez database
library(devtools)
install_github("ropensci/rentrez")

library(rentrez)
genes <- entrez_summary(db="gene", id=c(718,720))
genes$`720`$summary

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: Nice question (and answer, I didn't know about MyGene), if you know what you are looking for maybe it is worth to mention biomaRt  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-10-16. Score: 8

Description of how to use biomaRt here. Filter by your list of gene IDs. Get the descriptions etc as attributes. Eg:
> library(biomaRt)
> ensembl = useEnsembl(biomart="ensembl", dataset="hsapiens_gene_ensembl")
> IDs <- c("BRCA2","BRAF")
genedesc <- getBM(attributes=c('external_gene_name','description'), filters = 'external_gene_name', values = IDs, mart =ensembl)
> genedesc
  external_gene_name                                                                      description
1               BRAF B-Raf proto-oncogene, serine/threonine kinase [Source:HGNC Symbol;Acc:HGNC:1097]
2              BRCA2                  BRCA2, DNA repair associated [Source:HGNC Symbol;Acc:HGNC:1101]

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you for the answer. I did not find a way to return detailed information  using biomaRt. The description fields are just extended gene names.  

---

### Answer by username_2 on 2019-08-14. Score: 2

The easiest and fastest method (which also doesn’t require internet access) is to use annotation packages, e.g. org.Mm.eg.db:
library(AnnotationDbi)
library(org.Mm.eg.db)


# 1:1 mapping symbol→entrez
entrez_ids <- mapIds(org.Mm.eg.db, gene_symbols, 'ENTREZ', 'SYMBOL')

# 1:n mapping symbol→…
print(columns(org.Mm.eg.db))  # check what you can query
df <- select(org.Mm.eg.db, gene_symbols, c(...), 'SYMBOL')


---

