Animal QTLdb: Towards a Comprehensive Database and Tool Set for Livestock Genome Research

The Animal QTL Database (QTLdb; http://www.animalgenome.org/QTLdb) has been actively developed over the past 11 years and has become one of the most used database resources in the animal genome research community. With 28 releases to date, the phenomenal growth of the QTLdb is evidenced by ongoing data curation, database expansions, and addition of new functions, among many other improvements. Our efforts are effectively transitioning the QTLdb into a comprehensive database and tool set for the research community. The updates presented here serve as a summary of our progress over the past few years and as an introduction to several new features, including data types, species, trait mapping to ontologies, data alliances, user interface tools and curation tools, and federation with an Animal Trait Correlation Database (CorrDB). With these updates we would also like to solicit ideas and input from the research community regarding how we should focus our development efforts to better serve our users in the long run. For example, what data presentation, download, formatting, integration, and analysis tools might help with your research? What future database development efforts would help us keep pace with genome biology research? With your help we hope to continue to expand the utility of the QTLdb/CorrDB in the coming years.