Compugen to Make Databases Available Through Gencarta Platform

Users of Gencarta will be able to query and browse the genome and gain access to the data on a variety of levels, the company said in a statement.

On the genomic level, researchers will be able to get information about genes and pseudogenes, repeats, CpG islands, SNPs, enhancers, and promoters. On the transcript level information regarding splice variants, aligned ESTs and mRNAs will be available.

Each splice variant will also be annotated with information about homologues, SAGE-based expression profiles, open reading frames, sequence translation, and detailed domain summaries, Compugen said.

In addition Gencarta will provide access to Compugen's LEADS transcriptome database. This database offers thousands of predicted genes and splice variants, putative cSNPs, and annotated genomic information.

The company said its LEADS gene predictions have been tested and verified with a success rate of over 90% in Compugen's molecular biology laboratory.

Gencarta is expected to be commercially available for corporate installation in first-quarter 2001. It will be available on a subscription basis. The company did not disclose information about the cost of a subscription.

Compugen, which has recently repositioned itself as a developer of online bioinformatics tools and proteomics technologies rather than a maker of hardware, operates LabOnWeb.com, a  research portal for life scientists.