Genomic Database for the Flowering Plant Arabidopsis thaliana

小型开花植物拟南芥（Arabidopsis thaliana）是芥菜科的一员，已成为植物生物学的典范系统。其独特的特性使其可以应用于各种各样的研究问题，包括植物生理学，器官发育的分子遗传学研究和植物-病原体相互作用。拟南芥已经确立了自己的角色，有几个原因：它的体积小；生命周期短；基因组小；重复DNA序列数量少；以及相对容易通过分子和遗传方法来操纵它。随着种质和DNA资源中心、遗传和物理图谱及其技术、表达序列标记（EST、单通cDNA序列）和基因组测序项目的发展，拟南芥在植物生物学中的重要性日益增加。此外，由于开花植物是最近才进化出来的，在拟南芥中鉴定一个基因通常可以简化在其他开花植物中分离相应基因的过程。该项目将提供一个包含拟南芥基因组信息的电子数据库，包括方便和相关的所有已发表和其他公开的基因信息，它们的产物，它们在遗传和物理图谱上的位置，以及它们的DNA序列。此外，该资源将容纳不同群体的用户，从拟南芥分子生物学家到其他生物学家，他们自己的研究问题可以利用利用拟南芥进行的工作。这个数据库项目将利用万维网在因特网上提供信息资源，使用专门为基因组信息的呈现和分析而开发的客户端和服务器软件。该项目的主要任务是利用对象关系数据库技术开发一个科学数据库，并通过万维网开发一个适当的接口，以获取世界范围内植物分子生物学社区所需的信息。该项目的主要成果将是创建一个数据库环境，该环境将验证和存储有关物理和遗传图谱，DNA序列及其特征的信息，以及文献和详细的原始数据的交叉参考。Arabidopsis Genome Initiative （AGI）是一个由科学家组成的国际组织，致力于在2004年之前确定Arabidopsis基因组的完整DNA序列，为植物生物学社区提供了一个方便的访问世界各地正在创建的地图和序列的途径。

The small flowering plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, a member of the mustard family, has become a model system for plant biology. Its unique features allow it to be applied to a wide variety of research problems, including plant physiology, the molecular genetic study of organ development, and plant- pathogen interactions. Arabidopsis has established itself in this role for several reasons: its small size; short life cycle; small genome size; low amount of repetitive DNA sequences; and the relative ease with which it is manipulated by molecular and genetic methods. The importance of Arabidopsis to plant biology is increasing with the international development of germplasm and DNA stock resource centers, genetic and physical maps and their techniques, plus expression sequence tag (EST, single pass cDNA sequences) and genomic sequencing projects. Furthermore, because flowering plants evolved recently, characterizing a gene in Arabidopsis often simplifies the isolation of a corresponding gene in another flowering plant. This project will provide an electronic database containing the genomic information for Arabidopsis thaliana including convenient and correlated access to all published and otherwise publicly available information about genes, their products, their positions on the genetic and physical maps, and their DNA sequences. Furthermore, this resource will accommodate a diverse group of users, ranging from Arabidopsis molecular biologists to other biologists whose own research problems can take advantage of work conducted using Arabidopsis. This database project will provide an information resource on the Internet using the World Wide Web using client and server software developed specifically for genomic information presentation and analysis. The primary mission of this project is to develop a scientific database using object-relational database technologies as well as to develop an appropriate interface through the WWW to the information needed by the worldwide plant molecular biological community. The major product of this project will be the creation of a database environment which will validate and store information about physical and genetic maps, DNA sequences and their features, plus cross- references to the literature and detailed primary data. Collaborations with the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative (AGI), an international group of scientists working to determine the complete DNA sequence of the Arabidopsis genome by the year 2004 have been developed to provide the plant biology community with a easy access to the maps and sequence being created around the world.