Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference

January 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Workshop: Comparative Genomics
            

THE TIGR GENE INDICES: LINKING ESTS, GENES, AND GENOMES

¹ The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), 9712 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD, 20850, U.S.A.

The sequencing of Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) has provided a first glimpse of the collection of transcribed sequences in humans and other organisms, but significant additional information can be obtained by a thorough analysis of the EST data. Our analysis of the world’s collection of EST sequence data, captured in the TIGR Gene Indices (TGI; .), provides assembled consensus sequences that are of high confidence and represent our best estimate of the collection of transcribed sequences underlying the ESTs. We currently maintain Gene Indices for nearly fifty species, including human, mouse, rat, Drosophila, zebrafish, rice, tomato, potato, maize, soybean, Arabidopsis, yeasts, and a variety of eukaryotic parasites. Significant value can be added to Genomic data through the examination of orthologous relationships. To that end we have created TOGA, the TIGR Orthologous Gene Alignment database, which provides links between related genes and ESTs in a variety of species. We have also undertaken a project to provide comparative maps linking completed genomic sequence to the Tentative Consensus sequences that comprise the TGI. Collectively, the Gene Indices and related databases represent a unique resource for the comparative analysis of genes and genomes and may provide insight into gene, regulation, and evolution.