GENEX: AN INTEGRATED GENE EXPRESSION INFORMATION SYSTEM

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

² tacg Informatics 1 Whistler Ct., Irvine CA, 92612

Gene expression data provide researchers snapshots of the cellular biology and molecular function of living organisms. However, gene expression data, unlike sequence data, only have meaning in an experimental context. Representing that context in a compact, logical, intuitive, searchable way is the challenge the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) is addressing with the GeneX system. Whole-genome expression experiments produce massive numeric and image output; the data are expensive both to generate and store. Further, most of the information in a dataset is typically ignored because of targeted interests. Establishing an Internet-accessible repository would provide the storage, computing power, and tools wold enable other researchers to use these 'ignored' data. Such a database would encourage distributed development of objective statistical approaches dealing with differences within and between technologies such as equalization between different samples, background subtraction, and correction of edge effects. It would also help to establish baseline levels of gene expression under many conditions. Our goal is to create and make publicly available, via an Open Source model, the integrated resource described here, including all its components: the data, the interface software, and the analytic tools. Our collaborators will be providing data from two of the model systems of plants, Arabidopsis thaliana and Medicago truncatula.