In the 21st century, it is becoming increasingly important for students to be aware of and understand basic biotechnological and microbiological concepts. As always, these scientific concepts are most effectively conveyed through hands-on laboratory experiences. However, laboratory exercises are challenging because of the potential risk of student exposure to harmful microbes and chemicals, challenges in maintaining sterility of cultures, cost of scientific materials, and length of time required for preparation and laboratory experiments. Because of the urgent need to improve and expand the biotechnology and microbiology component of curricula using novel, safe, and effective approaches, we have developed this web site. As the centerpiece of this project, we have utilized the halophilic microbe, Halobacterium species NRC-1, which has been extensively studied in our laboratory for the last 20 years, as an ideal teaching vehicle. ... [Information of the supplier]
Aspergillus flavus is a plant, animal, and human pathogen that produces the carcinogen, aflatoxin. An organized multidisciplinary team is coordinating research efforts to control this fungus and to prevent the formation of its toxin in food and feeds. [Information of the supplier]
Funded as part of the Wellcome Trust Functional Genomics Development Initiative, the GeneDB project is aiming to develop and maintain curated database resources for three organisms: Schizosaccharomyces pombe, which has been completely sequenced, and the kinetoplastid protozoa Leishmania major and Trypanosoma brucei, whose genome sequences have yet to be completed. The goals are to capture, store and manage data for integration with emerging functional genomics and proteomics projects and to provide an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface, including a variety of graphical displays. It is envisaged that the generic database structure will subsequently be adopted to integrate datasets for other organisms, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic, that have been sequenced by the Sanger Institute Pathogen Sequencing Unit. To this extend, datasets for Saccharomyces cerevisiae as well as the filamentous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus are already available through GeneDB. The database has been developed through close collaboration between Sanger Institute software developers, on-site organism specific curators and representatives of the research communities. The data within geneDB are manually annotated and curated, frequently updated and, because of the structured annotation and use of controlled vocabulary, easy to precisely query. The database is under constant review and new functionality will be added as it evolves. ... [Information of the supplier]
The Earth Microbiome Project is a proposed massively multidisciplinary effort to analyze microbial communities across the globe. The general premise is to examine microbial communities from their own perspective. Hence we propose to characterize the Earth by environmental parameter space into different biomes and then explore these using samples currently available from researchers across the globe. We will analyze 200,000 samples from these communities using metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and amplicon sequencing to produce a global Gene Atlas describing protein space, environmental metabolic models for each biome, approximately 500,000 reconstructed microbial genomes, a global metabolic model, and a data-analysis portal for visualization of all information. ... [Information of the supplier]
The MicrobesOnline genome database contains over 300 prokaryotic genomes. All genomes are automatically analyzed through the VIMSS genome pipeline. We use publicly available sequence analysis tools and databases to search for homologs (NCBI BLAST, SwissProt, COG) and protein domains (InterPro), to assign gene ontologies (Gene Ontology Consortium) and EC numbers and to map the metabolic pathways (KEGG). We then link the orthology relationships between genes, predict operon structures and regulon networks. Most of the genomes are downloaded from NCBI and genes are parsed from GenBank files. When an incomplete genome is directly downloaded from a sequencing center, we predict protein coding genes using CRITICA and Glimmer, tRNA genes using tRNAscan and other RNA genes by BLASTn. All of the info in the VIMSS genome database is freely available on our website. ... [Information of the supplier]
The Fungal Genetics Stock Center is a resource available to the Fungal Genetics research community and to educational and research organizations in general. The FGSC was founded following recommendations of the Genetics Society of America in 1960 at Dartmouth College. In 1960 there were approximately 400 strains at the FGSC. Now there are over 8,000 Neurospora strains, a growing number of Neurospora knock-outs, over 2,000 Aspergillus strains and various representatives of other fungi. Additionally, the FGSC has cloned genes, and gene libraries. In early 2001, we added strains of Magnaporthe grisea and molecular tools for working with them. In 2003 and 2004, we accepted nearly 50,000 Magnaporthe knock out mutants. ... [Information of the supplier, modified]
xBASE is a database for comparative genome analysis of all bacterial genome sequences, with particular emphasis on organisms of significance to AgriFood. The project was originally conceived in 2002 by Roy Chaudhuri and Mark Pallen at the University of Birmingham, as part of a BBSRC funded Exploiting Genomics (ExGen) consortium. ... [Information of the supplier]
