Affiliations: National University Medical Institutes, Yong Loo Lin
School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore | Nanyang Centre for Supercomputing and Visualization,
MAE, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798 | Department of Microbiology, National University of
Singapore, Singapore | SCE, BioInformatics Research Centre, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore 639798
Abstract: Unicellular eukaryotes were among the first ones to be selected for
complete genome sequencing because of the small size of their genomes and their
interactions with humans and a broad range of animals and plants. Currently,
ten completely sequenced unicellular genome sequences have been publicly
released and as the number of available unicellular genomes increases,
comparative genomics analysis within this group of organisms becomes more and
more instructive. However, such an analysis is difficult to carry out without a
suitable platform gathering not only the original annotations but also relevant
information available in public databases or obtained by applying common
bioinformatics methods. With the aim of solving these difficulties, we have
developed a web-accessible database named u-Genome, the unicellular genome
design database. The database is unique in featuring three datasets namely (1)
orthologous proteins (2) paralogous proteins and (3) statistical distributions
on exons, introns, intergenic DNA and correlations between them. A tool,
Uniview, designed to visualize the gene structures for individual genes in the
genome is also integrated. This database is of importance in understanding
unicellular genome design and architecture and evolution related studies. The
database is available through a web interface at
http://sege.ntu.edu.sg/wester/ugenome.
