July 15, 2005
Although new technologies often solve old problems, they sometimes create their own set of woes. Take the DNA sequence databases that are now available for various oral pathogens. While these databases have helped to generate powerful new leads in the fight against periodontal disease, dental caries, and other oral conditions, they also now have created their own fair share of bioinformatic gridlock. A major reason is more than one sequence database exists for many of the more intensively studied organisms, and these online repositories typically apply different criteria to identify, name, and annotate the function of genes within the genome. But help has now arrived. As reported in the July issue of the journal Nucleic Acids Research, NIDCR grantees have recently launched a web-based center called the Bioinformatics Resource For Oral Pathogens, or BROP. This new center provides bioinformatics tools and databases for various oral pathogens that help scientists to more easily integrate information from multiple sources of existing data. The BROP also employs a cluster of computers to continuously update functional gene annotation as new data become available, and provide comparative genomic analytical tools to sift through DNA microarray data.
Read more about this oral pathogen resource or visit the Bioinformatics Resource For Oral Pathogens web site.