Integrating Genomic and Proteomic Data: The Integr8 Project

Abstract

Integr8 (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/integr8/) has been developed to provide an integration layer for the exploitation of genomic and proteomic data. High-quality databases from major bioinformatics centres in Europe are included, and some core data and the relationships of biological entities to each other and to entries in other databases are stored. Thus, a framework exists that allows for new kinds of data to be integrated, and an entity-centric view of complete genomes and proteomes is offered. Integr8 is an automatically populated database, providing different entry points to the data, depending on the user’s entity of interest. The Proteome Analysis database for statistical analysis and the Genome Reviews for annotated genome information are the main developments within the Integr8 project. With the BioMart application, an interactive querying tool for performing customisable proteome analysis and data mining is offered. Future developments will especially focus on the Genome Reviews, including mapping not yet annotated protein sequences onto their corresponding genomes, generating new predictions for non-coding RNA genes, and generally extending the scope to lower metazoan organisms.