FlyBase

FlyBase is an online bioinformatics database and the primary repository of genetic and molecular data for the insect family Drosophilidae. For the most extensively studied species and model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, a wide range of data are presented in different formats. Information in FlyBase originates from a variety of sources ranging from large-scale genome projects to the primary research literature. These data types include mutant phenotypes, molecular characterization of mutant alleles and other deviations, cytological maps, wild-type expression patterns, anatomical images, transgenic constructs and insertions, sequence-level gene models and molecular classification of gene product functions. Query tools allow navigation of FlyBase through DNA or protein sequence, by gene or mutant name, or through terms from the several ontologies used to capture functional, phenotypic, and anatomical data. The database offers several different query tools in order to provide efficient access to the data available and facilitate the discovery of significant relationships within the database. Links between FlyBase and external databases, such as BDGP or modENCODE, provide opportunity for further exploration into other model organism databases and other resources of biological and molecular information. The FlyBase project is carried out by a consortium of Drosophila researchers and computer scientists at Harvard University and Indiana University in the United States, and University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.