EST Database for Useful Plants

The genome sequences of model plants (Arabidopsis thaliana and rice) have been opened and subsequently those of Lotus japonicus, poplar, spikemoss, and even conifers have been decoded. Thus, the whole genetic information for many plants is now easily available. In addition to the sequence information, many genetic resources including T-DNA tagged mutant lines are systematically generated and offered to world-wide researchers. The global development of these plant resources enables us to perform reverse-genetic studies and functional genomics, resulting in the remarkable progress in plant biology. Conversely, genetic and protein functions involved in complicated metabolism of non-model useful plants, such as medicinal, crop, vegetable, and biomass plants, are still largely unknown, and they are concurrently attractive research targets for future plant science.

In this EST Database for Useful Plants at RISH, we release the expressed sequence tags (EST) obtained from the plants in which secondary metabolites and biomass are utilized. Currently, our database provides keyword search and BLAST search services, which will be useful for homology-based cloning of genes of users’ interests, and this information offers the sequences utilized for identification of conserved amino acid domains and motif, and also for phylogenetic analyses.