title: Mouse Resource Browser--a database of mouse databases.
abstract: The laboratory mouse has become the organism of choice for discovering gene function and unravelling pathogenetic mechanisms of human diseases through the application of various functional genomic approaches. The resulting deluge of data has led to the deployment of numerous online resources and the concomitant need for formalized experimental descriptions, data standardization, database interoperability and integration, a need that has yet to be met. We present here the Mouse Resource Browser (MRB), a database of mouse databases that indexes 217 publicly available mouse resources under 22 categories and uses a standardised database description framework (the CASIMIR DDF) to provide information on their controlled vocabularies (ontologies and minimum information standards), and technical information on programmatic access and data availability. Focusing on interoperability and integration, MRB offers automatic generation of downloadable and re-distributable SOAP application-programming interfaces for resources that provide direct database access. MRB aims to provide useful information to both bench scientists, who can easily navigate and find all mouse related resources in one place, and bioinformaticians, who will be provided with interoperable resources containing data which can be mined and integrated. Database URL: http://bioit.fleming.gr/mrb.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Immunology, Biomedical Sciences Research Center Alexander Fleming, 34 Fleming Street, 16672 Athens, Greece.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zouberakis
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chandras
authors.forename: Morris
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Swertz
authors.forename: Damian
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Smedley
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gruenberger
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bard
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schughart
authors.forename: Nadia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rosenthal
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Hancock
authors.forename: Paul N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Schofield
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kollias
authors.forename: Vassilis
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Aidinis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology; D003628:Database Management Systems; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D051379:Mice / Q000235:genetics*; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled