Last week in Pasadena, with WormBase as the host, a group of 50 curators, bio-informaticians, principal investigators and developers from several databases including the arabidopsis, yeast, zebrafish, fly, E. coli, mouse and human databases, gathered to discuss the biological relevance of the Gene Ontology (GO) and improvements to it. Several topics were discussed including how to make the GO more amenable to users and to provide tools and resources, so that users could analyze their data using the GO, in more meaningful ways. Some of the tools and improvements discussed related to ontology browsers, enrichment tools, and the extension of GO annotations to better capture the biology of a gene. The GO website itself is undergoing an overhaul to make it better. To learn more about the GO, visit www.geneontology.org.
Enhanced C. elegans RNAi library – supplementary clones now available to order from Source BioScience
The C.elegans RNAi library has been extended with 3507 new supplementary bacterial clones and now targets around 87% of currently annotated C.elegans genes. Purchase the complete set of all clones or individual chromosome sets (I, II, III, IV, V and X) which include the pre-existing and new supplemental strains. The complete supplementary sets of RNAi clones and individual chromosome suplementary sets (I, II, III, IV, V and X) are also available to order for those who have previously purchased the pre-existing library.
C.elegans genetic map frozen
The genetic map of C. elegans has changed very little in the past
three years, in terms of recombinational map distances and marker gene
locations. It is therefore being frozen, from WS232 onward.
In the future, new genetic loci, deficiencies and duplications will continue to be added to the genetic map, but these will simply be interpolated into the existing map.
Caenorhabditis sp.11 news
based on first results from the N-genome analysis group, work has been started by Pat Minx (WashU St.Louis) and Erich Schwarz (CalTech) to come up with an improved assembly.
SoCal Worm Meeting April 28th, 2012
The Southern California Worm Meeting will be held at the California Institute of Technology on April 28th. More information available at: www.SoCalWorm.com.