Legume Information System: Addressing Challenges For Maximizing Cross-Species Genetic and Genomic Resources

Most crop plants come from a small number of families: the grasses (Poaceae), legumes (Fabaceae or Leguminosae), Brassicaceae, Solanaceae, Rosaceae, etc. Within each family are numerous agronomic species, each typically with its own genetics and genomics project. It is clear that in a relatively short amount of time, most crops and plant model systems will have completed genome sequences, dense genetic maps, genomic resequencing data, and numerous QTL and mapped genes and mutants. As these species are related (at greater or lesser evolutionary distances), it is sensible for genomic databases and web tools to enable translation of trait and function data between species; yet there are many challenges, including: incompatible database schemas, unstable web addresses, complex evolutionary histories in some gene families and plant lineages, and difficulty in collecting and correlating trait and gene data. I will discuss efforts to overcome these challenges for species in the legume family, in the Legume Information System and allied databases. These include: use of widespread database and web standards; incorporation of gene family phylogenies to identify orthologs across species; a distributed data-collection effort to harvest mapped trait and gene data from the literature; and use of complete genomic data to help integrate historical genetic map data.