Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access originally published online on October 16, 2007
Nucleic Acids Research 2008 36(Database issue):D741-D746; doi:10.1093/nar/gkm825
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Nucleic Acids Research, 2008, Vol. 36, Database issue D741-D746
© 2007 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article appears in the following Nucleic Acids Research issue: Database issue [View the issue table of contents]
Articles |
The UniTrap resource: tools for the biologist enabling optimized use of gene trap clones
1Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM), Via P. Castellino, 111, 80131, Napoli, 2Dipartimento di Patologia Generale, Seconda Universita di Napoli, Via De Crecchio 7, 80100 Napoli and 3CBM S.c.r.l., c/o Area Sciente Park, Basovizza- SS14, Km 163,5 Trieste, 34012, Italy
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +39 040 375 7718; Fax: +39 040 375 7710; Email: elia.stupka{at}cbm.fvg.it
Received August 8, 2007. Revised September 20, 2007. Accepted September 20, 2007.
We have developed a comprehensive resource devoted to biologists wanting to optimize the use of gene trap clones in their experiments. We have processed 300 602 such clones from both public and private projects to generate 28 199 UniTraps, i.e. distinct collections of unambiguous insertions at the same subgenic region of annotated genes. The UniTrap resource contains data relative to 9583 trapped genes, which represent 42.3% of the mouse gene content. Among the trapped genes, 7 728 have a counterpart in humans, and 677 are known to be involved in the pathogenesis of human diseases. The aim of this analysis is to provide the wet lab researchers with a comprehensive database and curated tools for (i) identifying and comparing the clones carrying a trap into the genes of interest, (ii) evaluating the severity of the mutation to the protein function in each independent trapping event and (iii) supplying complete information to perform PCR, RT-PCR and restriction experiments to verify the clone and identify the exact point of vector insertion. To share this unique resource with the scientific community, we have designed and implemented a web interface that is freely accessible at http://unitrap.cbm.fvg.it/.