An International Bioinformatics Infrastructure to Underpin the Arabidopsis Community

Author(s)

Ruth Bastow, Jim Beynon, Mark Estelle, Wolfram Weckwerth

Abstract

The future bioinformatics needs of the Arabidopsis community as well as those of other scientific communities that depend on

Arabidopsis resources were discussed at a pair of recent meetings held by the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee

and the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee. There are extensive tools and resources for information storage,

curation, and retrieval of Arabidopsis data that have been developed over recent years primarily through the activities of The

Arabidopsis Information Resource, the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre, and the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center,

among others. However, the rapid expansion in many data types, the international basis of the Arabidopsis community, and

changing priorities of the funding agencies all suggest the need for changes in the way informatics infrastructure is developed

and maintained. We propose that there is a need for a single core resource that is integrated into a larger international

consortium of investigators. We envision this to consist of a distributed system of data, tools, and resources, accessed via

a single information portal and funded by a variety of sources, under shared international management of an International

Arabidopsis Informatics Consortium (IAIC). This article outlines the proposal for the development, management, operations, and

continued funding for the IAIC.

Organisation(s)

External organisation(s)

University of Warwick, University of California, San Diego

Journal

The Plant Cell

Volume

Pages

2530-2536

No. of pages

ISSN

1040-4651

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.110.078519

Publication date

2010

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

106028 Plant anatomy

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