title: Annotation of environmental OMICS data: application to the transcriptomics domain.
abstract: Researchers working on environmentally relevant organisms, populations, and communities are increasingly turning to the application of OMICS technologies to answer fundamental questions about the natural world, how it changes over time, and how it is influenced by anthropogenic factors. In doing so, the need to capture meta-data that accurately describes the biological "source" material used in such experiments is growing in importance. Here, we provide an overview of the formation of the "Env" community of environmental OMICS researchers and its efforts at considering the meta-data capture needs of those working in environmental OMICS. Specifically, we discuss the development to date of the Env specification, an informal specification including descriptors related to geographic location, environment, organism relationship, and phenotype. We then describe its application to the description of environmental transcriptomic experiments and how we have used it to extend the Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) data standard to create a domain-specific extension that we have termed MIAME/Env. Finally, we make an open call to the community for participation in the Env Community and its future activities.
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. Norman.Morrison@manchester.ac.uk
authors.forename: Norman
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Morrison
authors.forename: A Joseph
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hancock
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.forename: Luke
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hakes
authors.forename: Tanya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gray
authors.forename: Bela
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tiwari
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kille
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cossins
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hegarty
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: William H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Olive
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Last
authors.forename: Cas
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kramer
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bailhache
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Reeves
authors.forename: Denise
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pallett
authors.forename: Justin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Warne
authors.forename: Karim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nashar
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Parkinson
authors.forename: Susanna-Assunta
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Sansone
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rocca-Serra
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stevens
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Snape
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brass
authors.forename: Dawn
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Field
mesh_terms: D004463:Ecology / Q000592:standards*; D004777:Environment; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D023281:Genomics / Q000592:standards*; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis