The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR): improved gene annotation and new tools

TLDR

The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) is a genome database for the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a key reference organism in biology research. TAIR centralizes Arabidopsis data, annotates gene function and expression with controlled vocabulary, maintains and updates the genome assembly, and provides extensive visualization and analysis tools. Recent releases (TAIR8–10) updated the assembly, reannotated pseudogenes and transposons, incorporated proteomics and next‑generation transcriptome data into gene models and splice variants, and introduced new tools such as Textpresso for full‑text literature searches.

Abstract

The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR, http://arabidopsis.org) is a genome database for Arabidopsis thaliana, an important reference organism for many fundamental aspects of biology as well as basic and applied plant biology research. TAIR serves as a central access point for Arabidopsis data, annotates gene function and expression patterns using controlled vocabulary terms, and maintains and updates the A. thaliana genome assembly and annotation. TAIR also provides researchers with an extensive set of visualization and analysis tools. Recent developments include several new genome releases (TAIR8, TAIR9 and TAIR10) in which the A. thaliana assembly was updated, pseudogenes and transposon genes were re-annotated, and new data from proteomics and next generation transcriptome sequencing were incorporated into gene models and splice variants. Other highlights include progress on functional annotation of the genome and the release of several new tools including Textpresso for Arabidopsis which provides the capability to carry out full text searches on a large body of research literature.