Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X ConferenceJanuary 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA
Bioinformatics: Databases
The progress in genomics and proteomics has led to large amounts of biological data, which must be stored in robust databases to enable their analysis. The data fragmentation over many databases with differing structures and locations increases the need for easier data access to allow the concurrent exploitation of different resources. It is the aim of the EU funded Integr8 project to combine the advantages of a central database with the federated approach by creating a central integrative layer to store only the core data from its member databases and linking back to the richer data in the individual databases. Integr8 will create a gene-centric integration layer for complete genomes that allows to navigate from genome to transcriptome to proteome. The core objects of Integr8 will be individual genes in specific organisms, linked to experimental and computational data, including sequences, domains, structures, expression patterns, ligands, literature and other textual descriptions of gene and protein functions, plus practical information such as available reagents, DNA collections and microarrays. Zooming in on the sequence data linked to a gene, Integr8 will link genomic, transcriptional and protein sequences together. Each transcriptional unit will allow views on clusters of overlapping ESTs and cDNAs. The genome part will visualise the location of the gene on the genome, its exon/intron structure, regulatory sites, and polymorphisms. The protein view will show all different isoforms derived from a gene linked to domains, functional sites, and links to 3D-structures and homology models.