Skip to main content

Parasite Genome Databases and Web-Based Resources

  • Protocol
Parasite Genomics Protocols

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology™ ((MIMB,volume 270))

Abstract

In the last decade, high-throughput genome sequencing and complementary techniques such as microarray and proteomics have generated, and will continue to generate, ever-increasing amounts of data. These technologies of gene discovery, expression, and functional analysis have been applied to a vast array of organisms, including parasites. In most instances, the data are freely available via the Internet, and researchers are becoming increasingly reliant on up-to-date, centralized data repositories to complement wet bench science.

This chapter presents an overview of resources relevant to researchers with an interest in parasite genomics and biology. After briefly touching on some of the publicly available nucleotide and protein sequence as well as domain databases, the focus turns to parasite genome projects and associated Web-based resources. A list of parasite sequencing projects current at the time of writing, including relevant Web site addresses, is provided. The available resources range from network sites and project pages at sequencing institutes to databases that integrate and curate sequence data and associated annotation with diverse biological datasets. Particular attention is given to three databases, GeneDB (http://www.genedb.org/), PlasmoDB (http://plasmodb.org/), and tigr db, detailing the scope of each database and the tools available for data querying and retrieval.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Protocol
USD 49.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Gardner, M. J., Hall, N., Fung, E., et al. (2002) Genome sequence of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Nature 419, 498–511.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Stoesser, G., Baker, W., Van Den Broek, A., et al. (2003) The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database: major new developments. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 17–22.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Benson, D. A., Karsch-Mizrachi, I., Lipman, D. J., et al. (2003) GenBank. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 23–27.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Miyazaki, S., Sugawara, H., Gojobori, T., et al. (2003) DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) in XML. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 13–16.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. O’Donovan, C., Martin, M. J., Gattiker, A., et al. (2002) High-quality protein knowledge resource: SWISS-PROT and TrEMBL. Brief Bioinform 3, 275–284.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Boeckmann, B., Bairoch, A., Apweiler, R., et al. (2003) The SWISS-PROT protein knowledgebase and its supplement TrEMBL in 2003. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 365–370.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Mulder, N. J., Apweiler, R., Attwood, T. K., et al. (2003) The InterPro Database, 2003 brings increased coverage and new features. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 315–318.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Wheeler, D. L., Church, D. M., Federhen, S., et al. (2003) Database resources of the National Center for Biotechnology. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 28–33.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Brooksbank, C., Camon, E., Harris, M. A., et al. (2003) The European Bioinformatics Institute’s data resources. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 43–50.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Janssen, C. S., Barrett, M. P., Lawson, D., et al. (2001) Gene discovery in Plasmodium chabaudi by genome survey sequencing. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 113, 251–260.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. El-Sayed, N. M. and Donelson, J. E. (1997) A survey of the Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense genome using shotgun sequencing. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 84, 167–178.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Liu, C., Vigdorovich, V., Kapur, V., et al. (1999) A random survey of the Cryptosporidium parvum genome. Infect. Immun. 67, 3960–3969.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Smith, M. W., Aley, S. B., Sogin, M., et al. (1998) Sequence survey of the Giardia lamblia genome. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 95, 267–280.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Carlton, J. M., Angiuoli, S. V., Suh, B. B., et al. (2002) Genome sequence and comparative analysis of the model rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium yoelii yoelii. Nature 419, 512–519.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Katinka, M. D., Duprat, S., Cornillot, E., et al. (2001) Genome sequence and gene compaction of the eukaryote parasite Encephalitozoon cuniculi. Nature 414, 450–453.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. McDonagh, P. D., Myler, P. J., and Stuart, K. (2000) The unusual gene organization of Leishmania major chromosome 1 may reflect novel transcription processes. Nucleic Acids Res. 28, 2800–2803.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Worthey, E. A., Martinez-Calvillo, S., Schnaufer, A., et al. (2003) Leishmania chromosome 3 contains two long convergent polycistronic gene clusters separated by a tRNA gene. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 4201–4210.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Hall, N., Berriman, M., Lennard, N. J., et al. (2003) The DNA sequence of chromosome I of an African trypanosome: gene content, chromosome organisation, recombination and polymorphism. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 4864–4873.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. El-Sayed, N. M., Ghedin, E., Song, J., et al. (2003) The sequence and analysis of Trypanosoma brucei chromosome II. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 4856–4863.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. El-Sayed, N. M., Alarcon, C. M., Beck, J. C., et al. (1995) cDNA expressed sequence tags of Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense provide new insights into the biology of the parasite. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 73, 75–90.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Verdun, R. E., Di Paolo, N., Urmenyi, T. P., et al. (1998) Gene discovery through expressed sequence Tag sequencing in Trypanosoma cruzi. Infect. Immun. 66, 5393–5398.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Blaxter, M., Daub, J., Guiliano, D., et al. (2002) The Brugia malayi genome project: expressed sequence tags and gene discovery. Trans. R. Soc. Trop. Med. Hyg. 96, 7–17.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Parkinson, J., Whitton, C., Guiliano, D., et al. (2001) 200000 nematode expressed sequence tags on the Net. Trends Parasitol. 17, 394–396.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Manger, I. D., Hehl, A., Parmley, S., et al. (1998) Expressed sequence tag analysis of the bradyzoite stage of Toxoplasma gondii: identification of developmentally regulated genes. Infect. Immun. 66, 1632–1637.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. McArthur, A. G., Morrison, H. G., Nixon, J. E., et al. (2000) The Giardia genome project database. FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 189, 271–273.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Liang, F., Holt, I., Pertea, G., et al. (2000) An optimized protocol for analysis of EST sequences. Nucleic Acids Res. 28, 3657–3665.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Parkinson, J., Mitreva, M., Hall, N., et al. (2003) 400000 nematode ESTs on the Net. Trends Parasitol. 19, 283–286.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Hertz-Fowler, C. and Peacock, C. S. (2002) Introducing GeneDB: a generic database. Trends Parasitol. 18, 465–467.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Rutherford, K., Parkhill, J., Crook, J., et al. (2000) Artemis: sequence visualization and annotation. Bioinformatics 16, 944–945.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Clayton, C., Adams, M., Almeida, R., et al. (1998) Genetic nomenclature for Trypanosoma and Leishmania. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 97, 221–224.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Kissinger, J. C., Brunk, B. P., Crabtree, J., et al. (2002) The Plasmodium genome database. Nature 419, 490–492.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Bahl, A., Brunk, B., Crabtree, J., et al. (2003) PlasmoDB: the Plasmodium genome resource. A database integrating experimental and computational data. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 212–215.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  33. Tarleton, R. L. and Kissinger, J. (2001) Parasite genomics: current status and future prospects. Curr. Opin. Immunol. 13, 395–402.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  34. Oliveira, G. and Johnston, D. A. (2001) Mining the schistosome DNA sequence database. Trends Parasitol. 17, 501–503.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Roos, D. S., Crawford, M. J., Donald, R. G., et al. (2002) Mining the Plasmodium genome database to define organellar function: what does the apicoplast do? Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. Biol. Sci. 357, 35–46.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  36. Stein, L. D., Mungall, C., Shu, S., et al. (2002) The generic genome browser: a building block for a model organism system database. Genome Res. 12, 1599–1610.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  37. Stein, L. D. (2002) Creating a bioinformatics nation. Nature 417, 119–120.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  38. Wu, C. H., Yeh, L. S., Huang, H., et al. (2003) The Protein Information Resource. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 345–347.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Bateman, A., Birney, E., Cerruti, L., et al. (2002) The Pfam protein families database. Nucleic Acids Res. 30, 276–280.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  40. Attwood, T. K., Bradley, P., Flower, D. R., et al. (2003) PRINTS and its automatic supplement, prePRINTS. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 400–402.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Servant, F., Bru, C., Carrere, S., et al. (2002) ProDom: automated clustering of homologous domains. Brief Bioinform. 3, 246–251.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  42. Sigrist, C. J., Cerutti, L., Hulo, N., et al. (2002) PROSITE: a documented database using patterns and profiles as motif descriptors. Brief Bioinform. 3, 265–274.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  43. Letunic, I., Goodstadt, L., Dickens, N. J., et al. (2002) Recent improvements to the SMART domain-based sequence annotation resource. Nucleic Acids Res. 30, 242–244.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  44. Haft, D. H., Selengut, J. D., and White, O. (2003) The TIGRFAMs database of protein families. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 371–373.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  45. Myler, P. J., Beverley, S. M., Cruz, A. K., et al. (2001) The Leishmania genome project: new insights into gene organization and function. Med. Microbiol. Immunol. (Berl.) 190, 9–12.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  46. El-Sayed, N. M., Hegde, P., Quackenbush, J., et al. (2000) The African trypanosome genome. Int. J. Parasitol. 30, 329–345.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  47. Adam, R. D. (2000) The Giardia lamblia genome. Int. J. Parasitol. 30, 475–484.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  48. Spano, F. and Crisanti, A. (2000) Cryptosporidium parvum: the many secrets of a small genome. Int. J. Parasitol. 30, 553–565.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  49. Shirley, M. W. (2000) The genome of Eimeria spp., with special reference to Eimeria tenella—a coccidium from the chicken. Int. J. Parasitol. 30, 485–493.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  50. Carlton, J. M., Muller, R., Yowell, C. A., et al. (2001) Profiling the malaria genome: a gene survey of three species of malaria parasite with comparison to other apicomplexan species. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 118, 201–210.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  51. Nene, V., Bishop, R., Morzaria, S., et al. (2000) Theileria parva genomics reveals an atypical apicomplexan genome. Int. J. Parasitol. 30, 465–474.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  52. Kissinger, J. C., Gajria, B., Li, L., et al. (2003) ToxoDB: accessing the Toxoplasma gondii genome. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 234–236.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  53. Blaxter, M., Aslett, M., Guiliano, D., et al. (1999) Parasitic helminth genomics. Filarial Genome Project. Parasitology 118(Suppl.), S39–S51.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  54. Williams, S. A. and Johnston, D. A. (1999) Helminth genome analysis: the current status of the filarial and schistosome genome projects. Filarial Genome Project. Schistosome Genome Project. Parasitology 118(Suppl.), S19–S38.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  55. Williams, S. A., Laney, S. J., Lizotte-Waniewski, M., et al. (2002) The River Blindness Genome Project. Trends Parasitol. 18, 86–90.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2004 Humana Press Inc., Totowa,NJ

About this protocol

Cite this protocol

Hertz-Fowler, C., Hall, N. (2004). Parasite Genome Databases and Web-Based Resources. In: Melville, S.E. (eds) Parasite Genomics Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 270. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-793-9:045

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-793-9:045

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-062-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-793-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

Publish with us

Policies and ethics