Bovine Genome Database: integrated tools for genome annotation and discovery

Abstract

The Bovine Genome Database (BGD; http://BovineGenome.org) strives to improve annotation of the bovine genome and to integrate the genome sequence with other genomics data. BGD includes GBrowse genome browsers, the Apollo Annotation Editor, a quantitative trait loci (QTL) viewer, BLAST databases and gene pages. Genome browsers, available for both scaffold and chromosome coordinate systems, display the bovine Official Gene Set (OGS), RefSeq and Ensembl gene models, non-coding RNA, repeats, pseudogenes, single-nucleotide polymorphism, markers, QTL and alignments to complementary DNAs, ESTs and protein homologs. The Bovine QTL viewer is connected to the BGD Chromosome GBrowse, allowing for the identification of candidate genes underlying QTL. The Apollo Annotation Editor connects directly to the BGD Chado database to provide researchers with remote access to gene evidence in a graphical interface that allows editing and creating new gene models. Researchers may upload their annotations to the BGD server for review and integration into the subsequent release of the OGS. Gene pages display information for individual OGS gene models, including gene structure, transcript variants, functional descriptions, gene symbols, Gene Ontology terms, annotator comments and links to National Center for Biotechnology Information and Ensembl. Each gene page is linked to a wiki page to allow input from the research community.