THE Arabidopsis INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, DATABASE OF Arabidopsis STOCK INFORMATION

¹ Dept. of Plant Biology, The Ohio State University, 1735 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210 USA

² Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

The Arabidopsis Information Management System database (AIMS) provides information on Arabidopsis via the World Wide Web using a Sybase server. AIMS serves as the primary stock information and ordering facility of the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC) located at Ohio State University. All stocks of ABRC and the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre, UK, are contained on AIMS. AIMS provides full facility for ordering of stocks from the stock centers utilizing a fully searchable, related structure and a Web interface. Currently, most orders to ABRC are processed through AIMS, and users are encouraged to place order via the database to facilitate order handling for the high volume of requests that the Resource Center is experiencing. Usage of the database is heavy and still increasing since the implementation of the Web interface in 1994. The data entities of AIMS include: 1) seed stock descriptions, including images of phenotypes, references and stock donor, 2) DNA stock data including images of gels and instructions for stock use, 3) information on Arabidopsis researchers, 4) reference data for Arabidopsis publications, 5) mapping information related to genes and RFLPs, 6) stock availability information and 7) order histories of seed and DNA stocks.