A rapidly expanding portion of the sequence of the wild type is now available. So, many laboratories face the problem of sequencing their pet alleles, looking for mutations.
We have written a computer program for storage and retrieval of information about the recombinant DNA collection held by a laboratory. For each clone, information such as clone name, cloning vector, cloner, date cloned, notebook page, storage location, etc., is entered. The cloned insert is identified by a serially-assigned fragment number and by a restriction map. Wherever a given fragment occurs in the collection it is identified by its fragment number, and all restriction mapping data for that fragment is held together in a single storage location and kept updated. Data regarding interrelationships among fragments in the collection, such as which are subclones of others, are also held. The stored information can be searched and listed in a variety of ways. The program is modular in design and can be readily modified and expanded. It is written in Basic for a Dec RT-11 operating system ( PDP-11 computer or equivalent) and should be easily adaptable to other systems. We encourage other laboratories to use it. The program anticipates multiple laboratory use by prefixing each fragment number with a laboratory number. By this means each cloned segment of the genome is given a unique name. Eventually there will undoubtedly be a need for a centralized listing of information about cloned fragments of the C. elegans genome. We suggest that a centralized listing could be a subset of the information stored in laboratory based listings such as this one. For a free interchange of information among laboratories and between laboratories and a centralized data base to be possible, a uniform system of nomenclature and computerized format will have to be adopted. We have written this program in order to gain some experience with the use of a laboratory based data bank that hopefully will be helpful in designing a widely used system. Please contact us if you are interested in using this program. We would be glad to help you adapt it to your computer system.
Our laboratory is investigating the role of lin18 in vulval cell orientation. Worms mutant for lin-18 generate P7.p lineages that are misoriented, forming a pseudovulva posterior to a defective vulva (WBG 11(4):98).
Worm Community System Users Envision Future Application. Laura Shoman, Curt Jamison, Ed Grossman, Bruce Schatz, Community Systems Laboratory, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, 405 North Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801 (wcs@csl.ncsa.uiuc.edu)
The Genome Structure and Expression of Promoter/lacZ Fusion Genes of the C. elegans Ryanodine Receptor Y. Sakube, H. Imadzu and H. Kagawa, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, Okayama University, Okayama, 700 Japan C51918@JPNKUDPC
We have started a simple, web-based database for strains of nematodes maintained in a number of different laboratories as well as at the CGC. It can be reached via Leon Avery's C. elegans WWW Server (via the link to Other nematodes) or directly at:
Direct Interaction between FEM-3 and a Carboxy-Terminal Fragment Or TRA-2A Arun Mehra, Linda Heck, Patricia Kuwabara*, and Andrew Spence Dept. of Medical Genetics, University of Toronto, 1 King's College Circle, Toronto, Canada, and *MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Rd., Cambridge, UK