P0940 MIPS PlantsDB – a Plant database resource for integrative and comparative plant genome research

Manuel Spannagl , German Research Center for Environmental Health, Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Institute of Bioinformatics & Systems Biology, MIPS, Neuherberg, Germany
Mihaela M. Martis , German Research Center for Environmental Health, Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Institute of Bioinformatics & Systems Biology, MIPS, Neuherberg, Germany
Heiko Schoof , Technical University Munich, Freising, Germany
Klaus Mayer , German Research Center for Environmental Health, Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Institute of Bioinformatics & Systems Biology, MIPS , Neuherberg, Germany
MIPS PlantsDB is a genome sequence database system for data retrieval (“search and browse”), management and comparative genomics in plants. With the latest version of PlantsDB we introduce a number of important extensions and significant improvements both to data visualisation and database interoperability. Additional modifications were made to database schema and (comparative) genome analysis tools allowing users to make use of the rapidly growing number of sequenced plant genomes available in PlantsDB. To address the needs especially of high-volume genome sequencing projects (e.g. large genome sizes) we developed integrated visualisation tools for both physical and genetic maps. Data produced within the on-going international triticeae genome project efforts (such as wheat and barley) are managed and presented to the user community in the comparative framework of PlantsDB, such as: a.) results from the triticeae GenomeZipper analyses (Mayer et al., 2011 PlantCell) are available for on-line search and browse; b.) syntenic relationships between reference and model organisms can be studied using a dedicated visualization tool called CrowsNest. Going along with the growing amount of distributed data generated within different projects the need for flexible, yet powerful data exchange and integration tools becomes increasingly obvious. The strategy of remote interoperability of heterogenous data resources is complemented by a growing number of (BioMoby) web services within the PlantsDB system and will further be examined in the recently started EU TransPlant framework project. The PlantsDB portal can be reached at http://mips.helmholtz-muenchen.de/plant/genomes.jsp