euGenes: a eukaryote genome information system

euGenes is a genome information system and database that provides a common summary of eukaryote genes and genomes, at http://iubio.bio.indiana.edu/eugenes/. Seven popular genomes are included: human, mouse, fruitfly, Caenorhabditis elegans worm, Saccharomyces yeast, Arabidopsis mustard weed and zebrafish, with more planned. This information, automatically extracted and updated from several source databases, offers features not readily available through other genome databases to bioscientists looking for gene relationships across organisms. The database describes 150 000 known, predicted and orphan genes, using consistent gene names along with their homologies and associations with a standard vocabulary of molecular functions, cell locations and biological processes. Usable whole-genome maps including features, chromosome locations and molecular data integration are available, as are options to retrieve sequences from these genomes. Search and retrieval methods for these data are easy to use and efficient, allowing one to ask combined questions of sequence features, protein functions and other gene attributes, and fetch results in reports, computable tabular outputs or bulk database forms. These summarized data are useful for integration in other projects, such as gene expression databases. euGenes provides an extensible, flexible genome information system for many organisms.