BeeBase

BeeBase is an online bioinformatics database that displays data related to Apis mellifera, the European honey bee. It was developed in collaboration with the Honey Bee Genome Sequencing Consortium.

In Feb 2007, BeeBase consisted of a GBrowse-based genome viewer and a CMap-based comparative map viewer, both modules of the Generic Model Organism Database (GMOD) project. The genome viewer included tracks for known honey bee genes, predicted gene sets (Ensembl, NCBI, EMBL-Heidelberg), STS markers (Solignac and Hunt linkage maps), honey bee expressed sequence tags (ESTs), homologs in fruit fly, mosquito and other insects and transposable elements. The honey bee comparative map viewer displayed linkage maps and the physical map (genome assembly), highlighting markers that are common among maps.

Future enhancements planned for BeeBase are a QTL viewer and a gene expression database. The genome sequence will serve as a reference to link these diverse data types.

Biological data and services available on BeeBase include:

DNA and protein sequence data
official bee gene set (developed by and hosted at Beebase)
genome browser
linkage maps
server to search the honey bee genome using BLAST

Beebase organized the community annotation of the bee genome in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center [1].

In the United Kingdom the National Bee Unit, part of the Food and Environment Research Agency, independently runs an information website under the name BeeBase [2].

See also