The FlyBase database of the Drosophila genome projects and community literature

The FlyBase Drosophila genetics database and the public interfaces of the B erkeley Drosophila Genome Project (BDGP) and European Drosophila Genome Pro ject (EDGP) are in the process of integrating. At present, the data of thes e projects are available from independent, but hyperlinked, WWW sites (FlyB ase URL, http://flybase.bio.indiana.edu/; BDGP URL, http://fruitfly.berkele y.edu/; EDGP URL, http://edgp, ebi.ac.uk/), Because of the considerable ove rlap of data classes between the contributions of the Drosophila genome pro jects and the Drosophila community, the new and enlarged FlyBase consortium views the implementation of a single integrated Drosophila genomics/geneti cs server as essential to the scientific community. This integration will o ccur in a stepwise fashion over the next 1-2 years. In this report, the sal ient features of the current databases and how to interrogate and navigate the extensive data sets are discussed.