Researchers from Croatia and Spain describe a tool called ProTraits that brings together genetic and phenotypic information related to hundreds of traits in thousands of species of archaea and bacteria. The site currently contains annotations for more than 3,000 species, the team says, spanning some 57,088 gene-trait links inferred with the help of comparative genomics, metagenomics, proteome patterns, and other data types. "[O]ur analyses suggest that epistatic interactions are ubiquitous within bacterial and archaeal gene repertoires," the authors write, "affecting almost all commonly occurring gene families."
An international team led by investigators in China outlines the current state of the World Data Centre for Microorganisms (WDCM), a repository for all things microbial that brings together metadata-informed databases for more than 700 culture collections, microbial strain catalogues, a tool for interrogating genome sequence and other data, and more. "WDCM is now working on facilitating the application of cutting-edge information technology to improve the interoperability of microbial data, promote the access and use of data and information, and coordinate international cooperation between culture collections, scientists, and other user communities," the authors note.
Stanford researchers report on the addition of a chromosome-level, phased diploid Candida albicans assembly called assembly 22 into the Candida Genome Database (CGD), an online tool that houses sequence, gene, protein, and updated annotation information related to several Candida species. Along with the updated assembly, the team explains, the latest version of CGD also contains systematic gene and sequence identifiers and the genome browser JBrowse for taking a look at Candida sequence in different contexts and levels of resolution. "It is likely in the near future that many distinct strains of Candida species will be sequenced, and CGD will endeavor to incorporate these into the database as well," the group notes.