Gramene 2021: harnessing the power of comparative genomics and pathways for plant research (Nucleic Acids Research)

Gramene (www.gramene.org) is a curated, open-source, integrated data resource for comparative functional genomics in crops and model plant species. It launched 20 years ago and has continually grown and expanded to incorporate new tools and resources. This update by Tello-Ruiz et al. describes its current iteration, #63. Gramene “hosts 93 reference genomes—over 3.9 million genes in 122 947 families with orthologous and paralogous classifications.” As well as a Genome Browser, it includes an Expression Viewer and a Plant Reactome portal. As the authors point out, this extensive knowledgebase provides a “gold mine for training Machine Learning methods for knowledge extraction.” Through a pilot program called Domain Informational Vocabulary Extraction (DIVE), authors of recent Plant Cell and Plant Physiology papers have contributed to this effort by confirming or editing mined data. Future directions will include storing and providing access to species pan-genomes. (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching) Nucleic Acids Research 10.1093/nar/gkaa979