BIO101 - EST sequence management and annotation system

Laboratories worldwide are working on EST cDNA library and microarray projects, each project involving hundreds to hundreds of thousands of clones. To support the needs of individual laboratories, an efficient EST sequence management system is needed. Here, we describe BIO101, a centralized approach to laboratory EST sequence management and functional annotation. The system includes a) laboratory-based authorization, project-focused and custom database management features; b) a pipeline with integrated tools for producing and clustering high-quality ESTs and for identifying homologues; c) a pipeline scheduling mechanism that emphasizes fairness; and d) collaborative manual and automatic functional annotation features. BIO101 is accessible to registered members at http://bio101.iis.sinica.edu.tw/.