Genomicus: a database and a browser to study gene synteny in modern and ancestral genomes.
Comparative genomics remains a pivotal strategy to study the evolution of gene organization, and this primacy is reinforced by the growing number of full genome sequences available in public repositories. Despite this growth, bioinformatic tools available to visualize and compare genomes and to infer evolutionary events remain restricted to two or three genomes at a time, thus limiting the breadth and the nature of the question that can be investigated. Here we present Genomicus, a new synteny browser that can represent and compare unlimited numbers of genomes in a broad phylogenetic view. In addition, Genomicus includes reconstructed ancestral gene organization, thus greatly facilitating the interpretation of the data.


BACKGROUND
Genomicus is freely available for online use at http://www.dyogen.ens.fr/genomicus while data can be downloaded at ftp://ftp.biologie.ens.fr/pub/dyogen/genomicus.
Muffato
Matthieu
M
Dyogen Group, Institut de Biologie de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure (IBENS), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR8197, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U1024, 75005 Paris, France.
Louis
Alexandra
A
Poisnel
Charles-Edouard
CE
Roest Crollius
Hugues
H
D030541:Databases, Genetic; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005796:Genes; D016678:Genome; D023281:Genomics; D020407:Internet; D012984:Software; D026801:Synteny / Q000235:genetics*