ABSTRACT
The International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC) web portal (http://www.mousephenotype.org) provides the biomedical community with a unified point of access to mutant mice and rich collection of related emerging and existing mouse phenotype data. IMPC mouse clinics worldwide follow rigorous highly structured and standardized protocols for the experimentation, collection and dissemination of data. Dedicated 'data wranglers' work with each phenotyping center to collate data and perform quality control of data. An automated statistical analysis pipeline has been developed to identify knockout strains with a significant change in the phenotype parameters. Annotation with biomedical ontologies allows biologists and clinicians to easily find mouse strains with phenotypic traits relevant to their research. Data integration with other resources will provide insights into mammalian gene function and human disease. As phenotype data become available for every gene in the mouse, the IMPC web portal will become an invaluable tool for researchers studying the genetic contributions of genes to human diseases.
Subject(s)
Databases, Genetic , Mice, Knockout , Phenotype , Animals , Biological Ontologies , Internet , MiceABSTRACT
MOTIVATION: The online resources in the life sciences are characterized by a great fragmentation and one of the pressing issues of bioinformatics is making the integration of these resources a smoother and more flexible process than it is currently. Here we present i-cite, a browser extension, which implements a client-side model of integration which improves the navigation within the rapidly increasing life science literature and links terms from it to corresponding non-textual data. AVAILABILITY: http://i-cite.org.