Mercator: a fast and simple web server for genome scale functional annotation of plant sequence data
Marc Lohse1, Axel Nagel, Thomas Herter
1Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 14476, Potsdam, Germany.
Plant, Cell & Environment
|November 19, 2013
Summary
The Mercator pipeline automates gene function annotation for plant
Area of Science:
- Bioinformatics
- Computational Biology
- Plant Genomics
Background:
- High-throughput sequencing generates vast amounts of gene data.
- Functional genomics requires efficient tools for data annotation.
- Existing annotation methods can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce the Mercator pipeline for automated functional annotation of gene sequences.
- To provide a tool for plant 'omics' data analysis.
- To improve the efficiency and accuracy of gene function prediction.
Main Methods:
- Mercator utilizes the MapMan 'BIN' ontology for functional classification.
- It performs parallel sequence searches against curated reference databases.
- The pipeline integrates protein domain and family profiles from InterPro, CDD, and KOG.
Main Results:
- Mercator achieves over 90% accuracy in functional annotation compared to manual methods.
- The pipeline generates mapping files compatible with MapMan visualization software.
- It offers graphical overviews, detailed annotation data, and GO term export functionality.
Conclusions:
- The Mercator pipeline offers an efficient and accurate solution for automated gene function annotation.
- It supports functional genomics analyses of plant 'omics' data.
- Mercator is freely accessible, facilitating broader research applications.
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