iTAK – Identification and Classification of Plant Transcription Factors and Protein Kinases

Plant transcription factors (TFs), transcriptional regulators (TRs), and protein kinases (PKs) are important regulatory proteins which are involved in various biological processes such as plant growth and development and plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Identification and classification of these regulatory proteins from plant genome will facilitate studies on gene function, evolution, and regulatory network. We have developed iTAK, a package to identify plant TFs, TRs and PKs and classify them into different families. The iTAK package includes the following major components: 1) a standalone program and an online service which allow users to identify and classify TFs, TRs, and PKs from their own DNA or protein sequences; 2) a comprehensive database currently containing TFs, TRs, and PKs identified from 38 plant species that have genomes sequenced. The database also contains the results from the phylogenetic and syntenic analyses of these TFs, TRs, and PKs. A set of query interfaces and data mining tools were also implemented in the database.