title: PhenomicDB: a new cross-species genotype/phenotype resource.
abstract: Phenotypes are an important subject of biomedical research for which many repositories have already been created. Most of these databases are either dedicated to a single species or to a single disease of interest. With the advent of technologies to generate phenotypes in a high-throughput manner, not only is the volume of phenotype data growing fast but also the need to organize these data in more useful ways. We have created PhenomicDB (freely available at http://www.phenomicdb.de), a multi-species genotype/phenotype database, which shows phenotypes associated with their corresponding genes and grouped by gene orthologies across a variety of species. We have enhanced PhenomicDB recently by additionally incorporating quantitative and descriptive RNA interference (RNAi) screening data, by enabling the usage of phenotype ontology terms and by providing information on assays and cell lines. We envision that integration of classical phenotypes with high-throughput data will bring new momentum and insights to our understanding. Modern analysis tools under development may help exploiting this wealth of information to transform it into knowledge and, eventually, into novel therapeutic approaches.
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratories of Schering AG, Muellerstrasse 178, 13442 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Groth
authors.forename: Nadia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pavlova
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kalev
authors.forename: Spas
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tonov
authors.forename: Georgi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Georgiev
authors.forename: Hans-Dieter
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Pohlenz
authors.forename: Bertram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Weiss
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D010641:Phenotype; D034622:RNA Interference; D014584:User-Computer Interface