PlantMDCS: A code-free, modular toolkit for rapid deployment of plant multi-omics databases

Area of Science:

• Plant biology
• Bioinformatics
• Computational biology

Background:

• Increasing plant multi-omics data necessitates efficient local management and analysis systems.
• Conventional database construction is complex, requiring programming expertise and maintenance, hindering accessibility for smaller research groups.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a user-friendly, locally deployable platform for constructing and managing plant multi-omics databases.
• To enable researchers to perform data import, querying, integrative analysis, and visualization without programming.

Main Methods:

• Developed the Plant Multi-omics Database Construction System (PlantMDCS) with a decoupled front-end and back-end architecture.
• Implemented a graphical user interface for complete research workflow support.
• Benchmarked PlantMDCS using diverse plant datasets (alfalfa, maize, rice, poplar, wheat) and performed concurrent-access testing.

Main Results:

• PlantMDCS efficiently constructs local database modules from prepared datasets.
• The system supports complete research workflows without programming, with primary resource usage being disk storage.
• Benchmarking and concurrent-access tests defined stable operating ranges and scalability limits for local deployment.

Conclusions:

• PlantMDCS offers a practical solution for managing plant multi-omics data, transforming file-based workflows into reusable, database-supported systems.
• The system enhances accessibility for researchers, particularly small groups, by simplifying database construction and analysis.
• Demonstrated biological applicability through an alfalfa transcriptome-metabolome case study and a publicly accessible multi-species database.