The Gene Pages at MaizeGDB

Developing useful Web-based gene information pages for an organism with extensive integrated data is no small feat. At MaizeGDB we took special care with the development of gene information pages, relying extensively on input from the research community, and integrating a wide range of related data, including functional annotation, expression, proteomics, and genetic information. MaizeGDB’s policy of being responsive to requests from the research community along with the existence of specific, high-value datasets that do not fit easily into generic data tables or display code, complicate the implementation of clear and comprehensive gene pages. As well, in maize we have the additional complication that not all genetically defined loci correspond to a sequence-based gene model, and where they do correspond, that connection has to be clear. A further challenge is that we maintain all old versions of structural annotation and are now taking in annotations for multiple maize genomes, where the same gene can have multiple variations. Here we describe the process of designing the gene pages, their contents, and our approaches to handling data integration.