Xenbase, the Xenopus model organism database; new virtualized system, data types and genomes.

Xenbase (http://www.xenbase.org), the Xenopus frog model organism database, integrates a wide variety of data from this biomedical model genus. Two closely related species are represented: the allotetraploid Xenopus laevis that is widely used for microinjection and tissue explant-based protocols, and the diploid Xenopus tropicalis which is used for genetics and gene targeting. The two species are extremely similar and protocols, reagents and results from each species are often interchangeable. Xenbase imports, indexes, curates and manages data from both species; all of which are mapped via unique IDs and can be queried in either a species-specific or species agnostic manner. All our services have now migrated to a private cloud to achieve better performance and reliability. We have added new content, including providing full support for morpholino reagents, used to inhibit mRNA translation or splicing and binding to regulatory microRNAs. New genomes assembled by the JGI for both species and are displayed in Gbrowse and are also available for searches using BLAST. Researchers can easily navigate from genome content to gene page reports, literature, experimental reagents and many other features using hyperlinks. Xenbase has also greatly expanded image content for figures published in papers describing Xenopus research via PubMedCentral.

Xenbase: expansion and updates of the Xenopus model organism database.

Xenbase (http://www.xenbase.org) is a model organism database that provides genomic, molecular, cellular and developmental biology content to biomedical researchers working with the frog, Xenopus and Xenopus data to workers using other model organisms. As an amphibian Xenopus serves as a useful evolutionary bridge between invertebrates and more complex vertebrates such as birds and mammals. Xenbase content is collated from a variety of external sources using automated and semi-automated pipelines then processed via a combination of automated and manual annotation. A link-matching system allows for the wide variety of synonyms used to describe biological data on unique features, such as a gene or an anatomical entity, to be used by the database in an equivalent manner. Recent updates to the database include the Xenopus laevis genome, a new Xenopus tropicalis genome build, epigenomic data, collections of RNA and protein sequences associated with genes, more powerful gene expression searches, a community and curated wiki, an extensive set of manually annotated gene expression patterns and a new database module that contains data on over 700 antibodies that are useful for exploring Xenopus cell and developmental biology.