The Genomes On Line Database (GOLD) in 2009: status of genomic and metagenomic projects and their associated metadata

Abstract

The Genomes On Line Database (GOLD) is a comprehensive resource for centralized monitoring of genome and metagenome projects worldwide. Both complete and ongoing projects, along with their associated metadata, can be accessed in GOLD through precomputed tables and a search page. As of September 2009, GOLD contains information for more than 5800 sequencing projects, of which 1100 have been completed and their sequence data deposited in a public repository. GOLD continues to expand, moving toward the goal of providing the most comprehensive repository of metadata information related to the projects and their organisms/environments in accordance with the Minimum Information about a (Meta)Genome Sequence (MIGS/MIMS) specification. GOLD is available at: http://www.genomesonline.org and has a mirror site at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Crete, Greece, at: http://gold.imbb.forth.gr/

Figure 1.

Statistical information available from GOLD. (A) Evolution of the complete and ongoing genome projects monitored in GOLD from December 1997 through September 2009. (B) Distribution of the 5831 genome projects across the major sequencing centers. Abbreviations: JGI, Joint Genome Institute; JCVI, J. Craig Venter Institute; Broad, Broad Institute; WashU, Washington University; Sanger, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; BCM-HGSC, Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center; WORLD, all other sequencing centers. (C) Distribution of the 200 current metagenome projects across the three major metagenome classification categories. (D) Phylogenetic distribution of the 4172 bacterial genome projects as of September 2009.

Figure 2.

Graphical displays in GOLD. (Left) Geographical display of the collection location for organisms and environmental samples. Click on a project to view the detailed information window showing the name of the project, an image (if available), a GOLD CARD link, and a short description identifying the location. (Right) Phylogenetic distribution of archaeal, bacterial and eukaryotic projects with accompanying data tables.

Figure 3.

The GOLD CARD page. The GOLD CARD Page with the list of available metadata organized into six major categories. The corresponding MIGS/MIMS IDs are also shown for each GOLD field.