Animal models provide powerful experimental tools to test gene function and interrogate biological pathways. Comparative functional genomics between humans and model organisms has led to a wealth of discoveries, and it is clear that this will continue to play an important role in unlocking the potential of the genome for human health. In this post genomic era highly annotated and easily accessible data are increasingly essential for researchers to integrate vast amounts of sequence, expression and functional data into a meaningful biological synthesis. The goal of this proposal is to maintain and enhance Xenbase;the Xenopus model organism database. The African frogs Xenopus has long been one of the premiere model organisms used by cell and developmental biologists, providing numerous fundamental insights. The large and abundant Xenopus embryos enable sophisticated embryology, easy manipulation of gene expression by microinjection and biochemical analyses. Together with recent advances in genome and EST sequencing, the generation of full-length cDNA sets, microarray analysis, functional genomics screens, gene knockdown using anitsense morpholino oligos, the development of rapid transgenics and the establishment of Xenbase has made Xenopus a powerful system for functional genomics. Xenbase is a comprehensive database that provides a portal to inter-related Xenopus data including genomic, mRNA and protein sequence, gene expression, function and publications, which is all highly integrated with NCBI and other model organism databases. The goal of this proposal is to maintain and expand Xenbase.
Aim 1) Maintain and further curate the data in Xenbase by implementing Testpresso data mining and manual curation.
Aim 2) Enhance Xenbase functionality by introducing morpholino and mutant phenotypes.
Aim 3) Support new content on Xenbase gene pages including mRNA splicing microarrays, and a Xenopus WIKI.
Aim 4) Continue and expand collaborative research and service efforts by further integrating Xenbase data with NCBI and other model organism data bases. This proposal will empower Xenopus research and provide the broader scientific community a means of accessing a wealth of Xenopus data.

Public Health Relevance

; The Xenopus model system is a powerful tool for testing gene function in vivo. As gene functions are widely conserved between vertebrates data from Xenopus can be used to predict a genes role in human health and disease. This proposal to maintain and enhance Xenbase: will provide sophisticated bioinformatics tools allowing biomedical researchers to link Xenopus functional genomics data to human genes.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Biotechnology Resource Grants (P41)
Project #
5P41HD064556-05
Application #
8678968
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZHD1-MRG-C (41))
Program Officer
Coulombe, James N
Project Start
2010-06-01
Project End
2015-05-31
Budget Start
2014-06-01
Budget End
2015-05-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$859,632
Indirect Cost
$162,406
Name
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Department
Type
DUNS #
071284913
City
Cincinnati
State
OH
Country
United States
Zip Code
45229
Patrushev, Ilya; James-Zorn, Christina; Ciau-Uitz, Aldo et al. (2018) New methods for computational decomposition of whole-mount in situ images enable effective curation of a large, highly redundant collection of Xenopus images. PLoS Comput Biol 14:e1006077
Karimi, Kamran; Wuitchik, Daniel M; Oldach, Matthew J et al. (2018) Distinguishing Species Using GC Contents in Mixed DNA or RNA Sequences. Evol Bioinform Online 14:1176934318788866
Karimi, Kamran; Fortriede, Joshua D; Lotay, Vaneet S et al. (2018) Xenbase: a genomic, epigenomic and transcriptomic model organism database. Nucleic Acids Res 46:D861-D868
James-Zorn, Christina; Ponferrada, Virgilio; Fisher, Malcolm E et al. (2018) Navigating Xenbase: An Integrated Xenopus Genomics and Gene Expression Database. Methods Mol Biol 1757:251-305
Vize, Peter D; Zorn, Aaron M (2017) Xenopus genomic data and browser resources. Dev Biol 426:194-199
Session, Adam M; Uno, Yoshinobu; Kwon, Taejoon et al. (2016) Genome evolution in the allotetraploid frog Xenopus laevis. Nature 538:336-343
Deans, Andrew R; Lewis, Suzanna E; Huala, Eva et al. (2015) Finding our way through phenotypes. PLoS Biol 13:e1002033
Vize, Peter D; Liu, Yu; Karimi, Kamran (2015) Database and Informatic Challenges in Representing Both Diploid and Tetraploid Xenopus Species in Xenbase. Cytogenet Genome Res 145:278-82
Grant, Ian M; Balcha, Dawit; Hao, Tong et al. (2015) The Xenopus ORFeome: A resource that enables functional genomics. Dev Biol 408:345-57
James-Zorn, Christina; Ponferrada, Virgillio G; Burns, Kevin A et al. (2015) Xenbase: Core features, data acquisition, and data processing. Genesis 53:486-97

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