The Legume Information System 2014

The mission of the Legume Information System (LIS) is to facilitate basic research and its application to crop improvement in the legumes, which are critical components of global food and agriculture systems. LIS hosts datasets from numerous legume species, using “reference” species with extensive genomic and genetic resources such as Glycine max, Medicago truncatula, and Lotus japonicus, as a framework for enabling comparative exploration of data for related species that are currently less well-characterized. Work in 2013 has focused on: • transitioning to open-source GMOD frameworks (the Chado database schema and the Tripal web framework), • collection and description of new primary data sets, • incorporation of new genome sequences into browsers (common bean, chickpea, and a new Medicago assembly), • updating gene family data and web displays. We continue to maintain the “classic” LIS site, http://comparative-legumes.org, while also developing the new sister site, http://legumeinfo.org. The LegumeInfo site, developed using Tripal and Chado, will allow for more distributed development and efficient exchange of data with other genomic portals using similar architectures, including http://knowpulse2.usask.ca, http://www.coolseasonfoodlegume.org, and http://peanutbase.org. Work in the coming year will focus on incorporation of more gene family data and tools, more map and QTL data for several species, and further integration of map, sequence-search, and genomic data sets, including improved access to data derived from high-throughput sequencing experiments. LIS is funded by the USDA-ARS, and is developed and maintained jointly by the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) and the USDA-ARS at Ames, Iowa.