PLANT DISEASE-RESISTANCE GENE DATABASE

¹ National Center for Genome Resources, 1800A Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87505 USA

² 495 Borlaug Hall, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108 USA

Plant disease resistance genes (R-genes) are important components of plant genomes that exist as large gene families. Because of their functional importance and the abundant R-gene sequence data available, we have constructed a database and specialized exploratory interface for public analysis of plant R-genes. This database summarizes R-gene and R-gene-like sequences collected from public sequence and protein databases using Blast searches with a variety of known R-gene query sequences. In addition to compiling data associated with the sequence records, we have added information by building sequence alignments, uncovering conserved motifs, and performing phylogenetic tree analysis. To make this information accessible, we developed a user-friendly but powerful spreadsheet interface in Java. This tool allows the user to select fields to view, sort on the contents of a column, create subsets of the data, and save results. Unique features of this viewer include iconic representation of information and links to other views of selected entries, such as sequence annotation, alignments, or trees. This functionality makes it easy to ask questions about R-genes, such as what subfamilies of R-genes are known from a particular species, how many there are, and whether they differ from similar genes in related plant taxa. The viewer is part of a broader suite of integrated genomic analysis tools at the National Center for Genome Resources and serves as a model for other specialized datasets focusing on specific facets of genomic data.