# NCBI Protein Database Search via E-utilities

> NCBI Protein Database Search via E-utilities is a paid API for AI agents from clonecho.builda.company, paid per call via x402, $0.02/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-15).

Searches the NCBI Protein database using E-utilities and returns matching UIDs for a given query string

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://clonecho.builda.company/x402/s/ncbi-esearch-protein
- Price: $0.02/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-15
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/ncbi-protein-database-search-via-e-utilities-f82002ba
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_MQalaa_w1PCXjWiEJgiJs

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability ncbi-protein-database-search-via-e-utilities-f82002ba -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Search the NCBI Protein database for 'human insulin receptor' and give me the matching UIDs.

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to programmatically search NCBI's Protein database and retrieve UIDs for downstream bioinformatics workflows, such as fetching protein sequences, annotations, or cross-referencing with other biological databases. Prefer this over direct NCBI API access when you want a metered, x402-payment-gated wrapper that abstracts credential management.

## Known failure modes

- Empty result set if the query matches no protein records
- Malformed or overly broad query returning thousands of UIDs with no filtering
- NCBI E-utilities rate limiting causing delayed or failed responses
- Invalid query syntax returning an error from upstream NCBI API
- Network timeout if NCBI is temporarily unavailable

## How this service works

Search the NCBI Protein database and return matching UIDs for query {q} via E-utilities. Query: ?q= Returns JSON.

## Output

A JSON response containing NCBI UIDs (numeric identifiers) for protein records matching the query, along with metadata such as the total result count — suitable for further lookup in NCBI databases like fetching full sequence records.

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/ncbi-protein-database-search-via-e-utilities-f82002ba/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from clonecho.builda.company](https://www.zero.xyz/host/clonecho.builda.company/llms.txt)