COLIGENE - OBJECT-CENTERED REPRESENTATION FOR THE STUDY OF ESCHERICHIA-COLI GENE EXPRESSIVITY BY SEQUENCE-ANALYSIS

ColiGene is an object-centered knowledge base for the study of gene ex pressivity in Escherichia coli by DNA sequence analysis. This system w as developed with the knowledge base management system SHIRKA. Objects represented in ColiGene are biological structures such as genes or re gulatory signals. They are organized in a hierarchical structure of cl asses, subclasses and instances. Navigation through the knowledge base and the building of queries are made using a graphical interface. The base is coupled with the data base ACNUC which structures a specializ ed collection of sequences: EcoSeq. Several tools are also associated to ColiGene, either for sequence analysis or for a more general purpos e. Some biological results have been obtained using ColiGene which are summarized here.