The Arabidopsis Information Resource in 2024

Abstract

AbstractSince 1999, The Arabidopsis Information Resource (www.arabidopsis.org) has been curating data about theArabidopsis thalianagenome. Its primary focus is integrating experimental gene function information from the peer-reviewed literature and codifying it as controlled vocabulary annotations. Our goal is to produce a ‘gold standard’ functional annotation set that reflects the current state of knowledge about the Arabidopsis genome. At the same time, the resource serves as a nexus for community-based collaborations aimed at improving data quality, access and reuse. For the past decade, our work has been made possible by subscriptions from our global user base. This update covers our ongoing biocuration work, some of our modernization efforts that contribute to the first major infrastructure overhaul since 2011, the introduction of JBrowse2, and the resource’s role in community activities such as organizing the structural reannotation of the genome. For gene function assessment, we used Gene Ontology annotations as a metric to evaluate: (1) what is currently known about Arabidopsis gene function, and (2) the set of ‘unknown’ genes. Currently, 74% of the proteome has been annotated to at least one Gene Ontology term. Of those loci, half have experimental support for at least one of the following aspects: molecular function, biological process, or cellular component. Our work sheds light on the genes for which we have not yet identified any published experimental data and have no functional annotation. Drawing attention to these unknown genes highlights knowledge gaps and potential sources of novel discoveries.Article SummaryThe Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR,www.arabidopsis.org) is a comprehensive website aboutArabidopsis thaliana, a small plant that’s very easy to grow and analyze in the laboratory and is used to understand how many other plants function. We share our progress in data collection and organization, website and tool improvement, and our involvement in community projects.