| To facilitate global gene expression analysis
and extract useful information from massive amount of data
(e.g., generated by Affymetrix GeneChips and microarrays)
to reveal biological insights, we have decided to initiate
an effort to classify Arabidopsis genes based on related functions.
Although KEGG and TAIR (including GO, AraCyc and gene family
databases) have provided substantial information and TIGR
and MIPS have offered systematic and updated Arabidopsis gene
annotations, there is still a need of community effort to
provide more "biologically oriented" information
for each individual researcher to effectively analyze expression
patterns of the whole plant genome using free or commercially
available programs. For instance, there are numerous published
research articles and reviews and websites that contain rich
and useful information. However, it is impossible for a single
person or a single lab to acquire all the information efficiently
and use them effectively. Although the information could be
systematically collected and organized to some extend by computer
programs, its quality and accuracy will be the highest if
more researchers can participate in contributing, evaluating
and editing the information as an open resource. The ultimate
goal of our small effort is to encourage plant scientists
working on diverse areas and metabolic and regulatory pathways
of Arabidopsis to share their knowledge about gene functions
that they have become familiar with through their own work.
We believe that this organized information of Arabidopsis
gene functions will be applicable to other plant species and
useful for comparative plant genome analyses when more plant
genome sequences are completed in the future. |
