GreenPhylDB is a comparative genomics platform which has been developed since 2006 by Bioversity International with support from CIRAD and Syngenta. The new version 4, which is now available on line, was promoted during the Biocuration Conference held in Canada last April.
Comparative genomics is a field of biological research in which the genomic features of different organisms can be compared to accelerate gene discovery based on their evolutionary relationship with genes of known function in plants. The information generated can then be used eventually by breeders to produce better performing crops.
“Every year, hundreds of gene families are characterized through peer-review publications but their structure and classification is hardly captured by dedicated databases”, explains Valentin Guignon, a Bioinformatics specialist who has been working on GreenPhylDB. “To address this situation, we developed a user-friendly interface allowing customize to either pre-computed protein sequence clusters or to create new ones based on prior knowledge of a given gene family”.
The information can be then shared with collaborators and/or reviewers with a unique URL on the GreenPhyl comparative genomics website. Users can easily register through a registration form or by using an external Open ID account such as GMail or Yahoo!.
Valentin Guignon and fellow Bioversity scientists Alberto Cenci and Mathieu Rouard received a prize for the 3rd best poster when presenting GreenPhylDB at Toronto’s Biocuration Conference last April.
See more on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/BioversityInternational/exchange-your-knowledge-on-plant-gene-families
Reference: Guignon V, Cenci A, Rouard M, Exchange your knowledge on plant gene families, Biocuration 2014 (ISB2014), the Seventh International Biocuration Conference, University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada, April 6-9, 2014, poster session.
