dictyBase and the Dicty Stock Center (version 2.0) - a progress report

After serving the Dictyostelium community for many years, the first version of dictyBase (Chisholm et al., 2006; Fey et al., 2006) was in need of a decisive update. The original dictyBase software was not adaptable to more current demands such as handling the import of large-scale data from recently sequenced genomes, keeping up with changes in the Gene Ontology (GO), or handling the automatic annotation of over 20,000 new strains. Therefore, we have embarked on a complete overhaul of dictyBase. The new infrastructure will allow the introduction of new data, such as more expressive GO annotations and Dictyostelium disease orthologs. A modern user interface aims to streamline usage of the database including orders from the Dicty Stock Center (DSC). New displays will allow novel views including the combination of data in two new tools. With the underlying software infrastructure now in place, dictyBase software engineers and curators are currently adding the user interfaces, new tools and content pages for the evolving version 2.0 of dictyBase. This review highlights the emerging status of the new dictyBase, updated pages and annotations that will soon be available in the new environment, an overview of our annotation procedures, and plans to involve the community in curation efforts.