Rat Genome Database : A comparative genomics platform for rat mouse and human.

• The Rat Genome Database (RGD) is a NIH funded project who’s stated mission is “to collect, consolidate, and integrate data generated from ongoing rat genetic and genomic research efforts and make these data widely available to the scientific community.” In a collaboration between the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Jackson Lab, the National Center for Biotechnology and Information and the Genetics Lundberg Laboratory, Gothenburg, Sweden, RGD has been created to meet these stated aims. The primary focus of RGD is to aid Rat researchers in their work studying the rat as a model organism for human disease. To support these studies we have integrated a large amount of rat genetic and genomic resources in RGD and these are constantly being expanded through ongoing literature curation. One of the major features of RGD version 1.1, released in January of this year, is incorporation of QTL data to facilitate physiological genomics studies relating disease with the genome. In addition, a dynamic sequence-based homology tool is in final testing which will enable Rat, Mouse and Human researchers to view mapped genes and sequences and their locations in the other two organisms. We hope to release this tool in the second quarter of 2001. This will facilitate the application of results in one species to experiments in another species. In collaboration with the Mouse Genome Database and NCBI, close links are being created between RGD and MGD, LocusLink and UniGene to increase access to each set of data. To support its other general functions RGD has a variety of tools available for the rat researcher, plus ones that are equally useful to researchers working in other organisms and a sampling of these tools will be presented. Thus RGD is not only a valuable resource for those working with the rat but also for researchers in other model organisms wishing to harness the existing genetic and physiological data available in the rat to complement their own work.

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