MitBASE pilot: a database on nuclear genes involved in mitochondrial biogenesis and its regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

In the framework of the EU BIOTECH PROGRAM and within the 'MITBASE: a compr ehensive and integrated database on mtDNA' project, we have prepared a pilo t database (MitBASE Pilot) on nuclear genes involved in mitochondrial bioge nesis and its regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. MitBASE Pilot include s nuclear genes encoding mitochondrial proteins as well as nuclear genes en coding products which are localised in other sub-cellular compartments but nevertheless interact with mitochondrial functions. Genes have been classif ied on the basis of the mitochondrial process in which they participate and the mitochondrial phenotype of the gene knockout. The structure of the Mit BASE Pilot database has been conceived for a flexible organisation of the i nformation. An intuitive visual query system has been developed which allow s users to select information in different combinations, both in the query and the output format, according to their needs. MitBASE Pilot is a relatio nal database, is maintained at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute ( EBI) and is available at the World Wide Web site http://www3.ebi.ac.uk/Rese arch/Mitbase/mitbiog.pl.