Map the three-letter ancestry symbols used in PGS Catalog data (EUR, AFR, EAS, SAS, AMR, GME, MAE, MAO, …) to their full display names and underlying categories. Use this before interpreting any ancestry_distribution field.

List the current and previous PGS Catalog REST API versions with their dates and changelogs.

Get PGS Catalog metadata: REST API version and changelog, latest release date, counts of scores/traits/publications, the PGS Catalog citation (title, DOI, PubMed ID, authors, journal, year), the Ensembl version used for harmonized scoring files, and the terms of use. Use this to cite the catalog correctly.

Look up a cohort by short symbol (e.g. ABCFS, NHS, UKB). Cohort symbols are not guaranteed to be unique, so this may return several matches with their full names and associated PGS IDs.

Download the raw text content of a file from the PGS Catalog FTP site. Provide a path relative to the FTP root, e.g. PGS000001/ScoringFiles/PGS000001.txt.gz or PGS000001/Metadata/PGS000001_metadata_scores.csv. Binary files (e.g. .gz) are returned as base64-encoded text; text files (e.g. .csv) are returned as-is.

Retrieve one reported performance metric by PPM ID (e.g. PPM000001): metric estimates with confidence intervals and standard errors, the trait and phenotyping method, covariates, the associated score, and the evaluation samples.

Retrieve one PGS Catalog publication by PGP ID (e.g. PGP000001): title, journal, DOI, PubMed ID, authors, dates, and the PGS IDs associated with it split into development and evaluation.

Get release details: release date and the counts and IDs of newly added scores, publications, performance metrics, and traits. Omit release_date to get the current release.

Retrieve one sample set by PSS ID (e.g. PSS000070): every sample with participant counts, ancestry, cohorts, phenotyping details, and follow-up information.

Retrieve one polygenic score by PGS ID (e.g. PGS000001): scoring-file URLs including harmonized GRCh37/GRCh38 files, publication citation, reported and mapped traits, variant-development and training samples, ancestry distribution at each stage, method parameters, and license terms.

Given an NHGRI-EBI GWAS Catalog study ID (GCST), return the PGS IDs that used that study as the source of variant associations. Useful for tracing a GWAS finding into the polygenic scores derived from it.

Retrieve one trait by ontology ID (e.g. MONDO_0004989): label, description, synonyms, external mapped terms, trait categories, and the PGS IDs associated with it (and optionally its child terms).

List study cohorts referenced by the PGS Catalog (for example UK Biobank, NHS, ABCFS, ESTHER, PROFILE) with their full names and the PGS IDs that used them for development or evaluation. Provide cohort_symbols to look up specific cohorts.

List the downloadable metadata files in a score's Metadata/ directory (e.g. PGS000001/Metadata/). Returns file names, sizes, and modification dates. Metadata includes CSVs for cohorts, EFO traits, evaluation sample sets, performance metrics, publications, score development samples, and scores, plus a metadata archive and Excel workbook. Use get_ftp_file to download a file's contents.

List the subdirectories and files inside a score's FTP directory (e.g. PGS000001/). Returns the ScoringFiles/ and Metadata/ subdirectories and any other entries. Use list_ftp_scoring_files or list_ftp_metadata_files to enumerate the actual downloadable files.

List all PGS score directories available on the PGS Catalog FTP site (https://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/spot/pgs/scores/). Each directory is named after a PGS ID (PGS000001, PGS000002, …) and contains ScoringFiles/ and Metadata/ subdirectories. Use this to discover which scores have scoring files available for download.

List the downloadable scoring files in a score's ScoringFiles/ directory (e.g. PGS000001/ScoringFiles/). Returns file names, sizes, and modification dates. Harmonized files live in the Harmonized/ subdirectory. Use get_ftp_file to download a file's contents.

List all PGS Catalog releases, most recent first, with counts and IDs of newly added content.

List the higher-level trait categories used to group traits in the PGS Catalog (for example Cancer, Cardiovascular disorder, Neurological disorder) together with the ontology terms in each category. A good starting point for exploratory questions such as 'what polygenic scores exist for cancer'.

Search reported PGS performance metrics (odds ratio, beta, hazard ratio, C-index/AUC, variance explained, …) by score, publication, or PubMed ID. Each result includes the metric estimates with confidence intervals, the samples used for evaluation with their ancestry and cohorts, and the covariates that were adjusted for.

Search publications in the PGS Catalog by author name, PubMed ID, or an associated score ID. Returns citation data plus the PGS IDs each publication developed and evaluated.

Search PGS sample sets (the groups of participants used to evaluate a score) by score, publication, or PubMed ID. Each sample set lists participant counts, ancestry breakdowns, age and follow-up data, and the cohorts involved.

Search the PGS Catalog for polygenic scores by publication (PGP ID or PubMed ID) or by trait ontology ID (EFO/HP/MONDO). Provide pgs_ids alone to fetch a known set of scores directly. Returns scores with traits, publication citation, variant counts, weight type, ancestry distribution, license, and the FTP scoring-file URL.

Search PGS Catalog traits by name, trait category, synonym, ontology ID, or external mapped term (e.g. 'breast cancer', 'Neurological disorder', 'ICD10:I25', 'OMIM:605526'). Always use this first to resolve a human-readable condition into the exact EFO/MONDO/HP ID that search_scores expects — ontology IDs change between catalog releases, so do not assume an ID from documentation or memory. Child ontology terms are included by default.