International Mammalian Genome Society

The 16th International Mouse Genome Conference (2002)

Plenary Presentations * Oral Presentations *
Poster Presentations: Complex Genetics and Disease Modifiers * Developmental Genetics * Functional Genomics * Gene Discovery * Genetic Manipulations to Alter Gene Function * Mouse Models: Human Disease and Pharmacogenetics * Sequence Annotation and Comparative Analysis of Genomes *
Attendees * Sponsors * Table of Contents * Photographs * Awards

Oral Presentation

Sunday 17 November

17:15 - 17:30 HRS

A PROPOSAL FOR A COMMUNITY EFFORT TO ANNOTATE THE STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND EVOLUTION OF BIOLOGICAL PATHWAYS IN A PUBLIC DATABASE

J Nadeau
CWRU

During the next phase of the Human Genome Project, research will focus on attributing functions to genes, their regulatory elements, and other DNA sequences. While the sequencing phase could be conducted by researchers with expertise in genomics, molecular biology and computer science, the functional phase will involve researchers from an extraordinary variety of disciplines, many of whom will have limited experience in genomics or bioinformatics. To facilitate their use of genomic information in these functional studies, a new perspective is urgently needed as a research tool to study genome sequences in the context of many kinds of biological information. Pathways are the logical format for presenting this information in a manner that is familiar to biological researchers. As a prototype, we annotated the folate and homocysteine pathways with comprehensive information about the structure, function and evolution of each gene in the folate and homocysteine pathways. We developed a prototype pathways database for exploring ways to acquire, manage, display and query genomic information about the function of genes in biological pathways. We propose that the construction and maintenance of information about pathways in mice becomes a community activity in the same way that Chromosome Committees help build, edit, verify and annotate the genetic maps.