Using Data Warehouse Technology in Crop Plant Bioinformatics

Plant-specific data is managed in heterogeneous formats and is dispersed geographically. Based on this data, efficient analyses require a materialised integration, often realised with data warehouse technology today. We describe the requirements, problems and solution strategies for domain-crossing integration as the fundament for analysing plant biological data based on three current case studies. First, we introduce a system for retrieval of markers and mapping positions based on clustering of ESTs. The second case study illustrates the steps for diversity studies after genotyping a collection of about 3,000 ryegrass accessions (Lolium spp.), whereas in the third example data of approximately 250 barley cultivars (Hordeum vulgare) were used for associating haplotypeand SNP-patterns with malting parameters. For all case studies, we integrate data from different domains sequence and marker data as well as IPK Genebank data including passport and phenotypic information. Specific problems associated with plant biological data and possible solution strategies are shown.