A hallmark of modern biology is large-scale -omics data. These data are massive and often very complex in nature; thereby generating the need for extensive storage, detailed computational analyses, fast retrieval and efficient integration, for better understanding of the data and hypothesis generation for the underlying biological system. Our efforts to study the systems biology of the soybean root hair cell have generated very large datasets. In addition, other laboratories are now applying these methods to soybean to address a variety of biological questions. To address the need for web resources capable of handling the complex task of integrating soybean -omics data and to provide data annotation (e.g. the pathway information), we developed the Soybean Knowledge Base. .

 

The Soybean Knowledge Base (SoyKB) is a comprehensive all-inclusive web resource for soybean. SoyKB is designed to handle the storage and integration of the genomics, microarray, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics data along with the function and pathway information. It has four modules including the main mySQL database module at the back end that incorporates and integrates all the soybean genomics and -omics data from various sources. It is designed to contain information on four different entities namely genes, miRNAs, metabolites and SNPs. The other three front-end modules are web interface, genome browser and pathway integration.

 

SoyKB has four tiers of registration, which control the access to the public and private experimental datasets. Users can add comments, download data for multiple genes as well as submit their own datasets. Tools like protein 3D-structure and pathway viewers, gene family browsers and BLAST sequence similarity tool are all part of key features of SoyKB.

 

SoyKB can be accessed at http://soykb.org/.

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