BACKGROUND: With the rapid growth of genome sequencing projects, genome browser is becoming indispensable, not only as a visualization system but also as an interactive platform to support open data access and collaborative work. Thus a customizable genome browser framework with rich functions and flexible configuration is needed to facilitate various genome research projects. RESULTS: Based on next-generation web technologies, we have developed a general-purpose genome browser framework ABrowse which provides interactive browsing experience, open data access and collaborative work support. By supporting Google-map-like smooth navigation, ABrowse offers end users highly interactive browsing experience. To facilitate further data analysis, multiple data access approaches are supported for external platforms to retrieve data from ABrowse. To promote collaborative work, an online user-space is provided for end users to create, store and share comments, annotations and landmarks. For data providers, ABrowse is highly customizable and configurable. The framework provides a set of utilities to import annotation data conveniently. To build ABrowse on existing annotation databases, data providers could specify SQL statements according to database schema. And customized pages for detailed information display of annotation entries could be easily plugged in. For developers, new drawing strategies could be integrated into ABrowse for new types of annotation data. In addition, standard web service is provided for data retrieval remotely, providing underlying machine-oriented programming interface for open data access. CONCLUSIONS: ABrowse framework is valuable for end users, data providers and developers by providing rich user functions and flexible customization approaches. The source code is published under GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 and is accessible at http://www.abrowse.org/. To demonstrate all the features of ABrowse, a live demo for Arabidopsis thaliana genome has been built at http://arabidopsis.cbi.edu.cn/.

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide duplication is ubiquitous during diversification of the angiosperms, and gene duplication is one of the most important mechanisms for evolutionary novelties. As an indicator of functional evolution, the divergence of expression patterns following duplication events has drawn great attention in recent years. Using large-scale whole-genome microarray data, we systematically analyzed expression divergence patterns of rice genes from block, tandem and dispersed duplications. RESULTS: We found a significant difference in expression divergence patterns for the three types of duplicated gene pairs. Expression correlation is significantly higher for gene pairs from block and tandem duplications than those from dispersed duplications. Furthermore, a significant correlation was observed between the expression divergence and the synonymous substitution rate which is an approximate proxy of divergence time. Thus, both duplication types and divergence time influence the difference in expression divergence. Using a linear model, we investigated the influence of these two variables and found that the difference in expression divergence between block and dispersed duplicates is attributed largely to their different divergence time. In addition, the difference in expression divergence between tandem and the other two types of duplicates is attributed to both divergence time and duplication type. CONCLUSION: Consistent with previous studies on Arabidopsis, our results revealed a significant difference in expression divergence between the types of duplicated genes and a significant correlation between expression divergence and synonymous substitution rate. We found that the attribution of duplication mode to the expression divergence implies a different evolutionary course of duplicated genes.

SUMMARY: DRTF contains 2025 putative transcription factors (TFs) in Oryza sativa L. ssp. indica and 2384 in ssp. japonica, distributed in 63 families, identified by computational prediction and manual curation. It includes detailed annotations of each TF including sequence features, functional domains, Gene Ontology assignment, chromosomal localization, EST and microarray expression information, as well as multiple sequence alignment of the DNA-binding domains for each TF family. The database can be browsed and searched with a user-friendly web interface. AVAILABILITY: DRTF is available at http://drtf.cbi.pku.edu.cn

UNLABELLED: We have probably developed the most comprehensive database of Arabidopsis transcription factors (DATF). The DATF contains known and predicted Arabidopsis transcription factors (1827 genes in 56 families) with the unique information of 1177 cloned sequences and many other features including 3D structure templates, EST expression information, transcription factor binding sites and nuclear location signals. AVAILABILITY: DATF is freely available at http://datf.cbi.pku.edu.cn