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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #322296
Title: MaizeGDB update: New tools, data, and interface for the maize model organism database

Author
item Andorf, Carson
item CANNON, ETHALINDA - Iowa State University
item Portwood, John
item GARDINER, JACK - Iowa State University
item Harper, Elisabeth
item Schaeffer, Mary
item BRAUN, BREMEN - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item Campbell, Darwin
item VINNAKOTA, ABHINAV - Iowa State University
item SRIBALUSA, VENKTANAGA - Iowa State University
item HUERTA, MIRANDA - Iowa State University
item CHO, KYOUNG TAK - Iowa State University
item WIMALANATHAN, KOKULAPALAN - Iowa State University
item RICHTER, JACQUELINE - Iowa State University
item MAUCH, EMILY - Iowa State University
item RAO, BHAVANI - Iowa State University
item BIRKETT, SCOTT - Iowa State University
item Sen, Taner
item Lawrence, Carolyn

Submitted to: Nucleic Acids Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/24/2015
Publication Date: 1/4/2016
Citation: Andorf, C.M., Cannon, E., Portwood II, J.L., Gardiner, J.M., Harper, E.C., Schaeffer, M.L., Braun, B.L., Campbell, D.A., Vinnakota, A.G., Sribalusa, V.V., Huerta, M., Cho, K., Wimalanathan, K., Richter, J.D., Mauch, E.D., Rao, B.S., Birkett, S.M., Sen, T.Z., Lawrence, C.J. 2016. MaizeGDB update: New tools, data, and interface for the maize model organism database. Nucleic Acids Research. 44 (D1):D1195-201. doi:10.1093/nar/gkv1007.

Interpretive Summary: Maize is both the number one production crop in the world and a historically important model organism. MaizeGDB is the community database for the maize research community. A maize community database has existed for 25 years but has only two major revisions. The new website redesign for MaizeGDB uses modern web technologies, standards, and practices to create a modern and easy-to-use web interface, provide organization and hierarchy to the growing number of data types available at the site, and develop a robust and scalable back-end infrastructure to manage and support the large-term vision of future data types and analysis tools.

Technical Abstract: MaizeGDB is a highly curated, community-oriented database and informatics service to researchers focused on the crop plant and model organism Zea mays ssp. mays. Although some form of the maize community database has existed over the last 25 years, there have only been two major releases. In 1991, the original maize genetics database MaizeDB was created. In 2003, the combined contents of MaizeDB and the sequence data from ZmDB were made accessible as a single resource named MaizeGDB. Over the next decade, MaizeGDB became more sequence driven while still maintaining traditional maize genetics datasets. This enabled the project to meet the continued growing and evolving needs of the maize research community, yet the interface and underlying infrastructure remained unchanged. In 2015, the MaizeGDB team completed a multi-year effort to update the MaizeGDB resource by reorganizing existing data, upgrading hardware and infrastructure, creating new tools, incorporating new data types (including diversity data, expression data, gene models, and metabolic pathways), and developing and deploying a modern interface. In addition to coordinating a data resource, the MaizeGDB team coordinates activities and provides technical support to the maize research community. MaizeGDB is accessible online at http://www.maizegdb.org.