Plant database resources at The Institute for Genomic Research

With the completion of the genome sequences of the model plants Arabidopsis and rice, and the continuing sequencing efforts of other economically important crop plants, an unprecedented amount of genome sequence data is now available for large-scale genomics studies and analyses, such as the identification and discovery of novel genes, comparative genomics, and functional genomics. Efficient utilization of these large data sets is critically dependent on the ease of access and organization of the data. The plant databases at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) have been set up to maintain various data types including genomic sequence, annotation and analyses, expressed transcript assemblies and analyses, and gene expression profiles from microarray studies. We present here an overview of the TIGR database resources for plant genomics and describe methods to access the data.