LAILAPS and e!DAL: Explore Genome Annotations and Publish Research Data

The Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) is committed to the conservation and valorization of plant genetic resources. Its research agenda comprises upstream and downstream analyses in the fields of genetics, physiology and cell biology aiming at a broad understanding of plants at molecular, cellular and organismic levels. In consequence, information storage and retrieval are essential parts of IPK’s research infrastructure. Here, we present recent results in both areas.
To link plant genomic data in the context of phenotypic attributes for a detailed forward genetic research, the information retrieval system LAILAPS (http://lailaps.ipk-gatersleben.de), was designed. Information retrieval has become an all-encompassing bioinformatics methodology for extracting knowledge from complex, heterogeneous, and distributed databases. Therefore, LAILAPS can be a useful tool for obtaining a comprehensive view on plant genomics, from genes to traits. It comprises around 65 million indexed documents, encompassing over 13 major life science databases with around 80 million links to plant genomic resources.
Furthermore, we present the e!DAL Java API (http://edal.ipk-gatersleben.de) as a lightweight software framework for publishing and sharing research data. e!DAL stands for electronic Data Archive Library. Its main features are version tracking, management of metadata, information retrieval, registration of persistent identifier, embedded HTTP(S) server for public data access, embedded network file system, and a scalable storage backend. e!DAL is available as an open- source API for a local non-shared storage and remote usage to feature distributed applications.