GrainGenes: AN UPDATE ON THE GENOME DATABASE FOR SMALL GRAINS AND SUGARCANE

*Gerard R. Lazo(1), David E. Matthews(2), and Olin D. Anderson(1)

(1) USDA ARS Western Regional Research Center, Albany, CA, USA 
(2) Dept. Plant Breeding & Biometry, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

GrainGenes is a central repository for information on wheat, barley, oats, 
rye and sugarcane for use by the international research community. It has 
been a valuable resource of information for researchers via the Internet and 
local computer installations. Information for this database has been 
collected from a wide resource of small grains research, and essentially any 
person with an Internet connection can have access to the most current 
information of this database. In some instances, the database has been 
archived to CD-ROM for use in remote areas. 

GrainGenes includes information on genetic maps, DNA probes, germplasm, 
pathology, references, colleagues, and other classes of information.

The GrainGenes Database Project includes an Internet World-Wide-Web (WWW) 
server at the USDA ARS Western Regional Research Center, Albany, CA, USA 
(http://wheat.pw.usda.gov/) and a Gopher server at Cornell University, 
Ithaca, NY, USA (gopher://greengenes.cit.cornell.edu/).  A log of new and 
updated data in GrainGenes is available on both of these sites. The 
GrainGenes database is centrally housed at the National Agricultural Library 
Agricultural Genome Information Server, Beltsville, MD, USA 
(http://probe.nalusda.gov/) and may also be accessed through mirror sites at 
the National Institute for Agronomic Research, Jouy-en-Josas, France 
(http://grain.jouy.inra.fr/); Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel 
(http://bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il/); and the UK CropNet, Nottingham, UK 
(http://nasc.nott.ac.uk:8400/). These databases are updated regularly from 
the central database site.

To expand the collection of information, a set of on-line data collection 
forms has been made available on the WWW server at Albany. These forms allow 
input of data on germplasm, pathology, molecular biology research, and 
literature. The research community is encouraged to make use of these forms. 
Also located at this site are links to other important web sites, news, and 
topics relating to small grain crops and sugarcane. This site is also a link 
to the GrainGenes Probe Repository, a resource for those using molecular 
probes for gene mapping projects.

There are now more than 1000 DNA probes in the GrainGenes Probe Repository. 
Information about the map position, clone, primers, or sequence of a DNA 
probe may be retrieved through the GrainGenes database. The probes in the 
collection are currently being sequenced and are published in the database 
as they become available. Researchers may also order these probes over the 
Internet.

The GrainGenes project encourages fellow researchers to visit on-line, 
browse through the database, and to provide feedback through the WWW on-line 
forms about what needs to be added or improved in the database, or to 
comment on the usefulness of the database to the researcher.