Genomic information infrastructure after the deluge

Maintaining up-to-date annotation on reference genomes is becoming more important, not less, as the ability to rapidly and cheaply resequence genomes expands

Ensembl Genomes 2016: more genomes, more complexity

Ensembl Genomes (http://www.ensemblgenomes.org) is an integrating resource for genome-scale data from non-vertebrate species, complementing the resources for vertebrate genomics developed in the context of the Ensembl project (http://www.ensembl.org). Together, the two resources provide a consistent set of programmatic and interactive interfaces to a rich range of data including reference sequence, gene models, transcriptional data, genetic variation and comparative analysis. This paper provides an update to the previous publications about the resource, with a focus on recent developments. These include the development of new analyses and views to represent polyploid genomes (of which bread wheat is the primary exemplar); and the continued up-scaling of the resource, which now includes over 23 000 bacterial genomes, 400 fungal genomes and 100 protist genomes, in addition to 55 genomes from invertebrate metazoa and 39 genomes from plants. This dramatic increase in the number of included genomes is one part of a broader effort to automate the integration of archival data (genome sequence, but also associated RNA sequence data and variant calls) within the context of reference genomes and make it available through the Ensembl user interfaces

An international bioinformatics infrastructure to underpin the Arabidopsis community

The future bioinformatics needs of the Arabidopsis community as well as those of other scientific communities that depend on Arabidopsis resources were discussed at a pair of recent meetings held by the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee and the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee. There are extensive tools and resources for information storage, curation, and retrieval of Arabidopsis data that have been developed over recent years primarily through the activities of The Arabidopsis Information Resource, the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre, and the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center, among others. However, the rapid expansion in many data types, the international basis of the Arabidopsis community, and changing priorities of the funding agencies all suggest the need for changes in the way informatics infrastructure is developed and maintained. We propose that there is a need for a single core resource that is integrated into a larger international consortium of investigators. We envision this to consist of a distributed system of data, tools, and resources, accessed via a single information portal and funded by a variety of sources, under shared international management of an International Arabidopsis Informatics Consortium (IAIC). This article outlines the proposal for the development, management, operations, and continued funding for the IAIC