THE 2DWG META-DATABASE OF 2-DIMENSIONAL ELECTROPHORETIC GEL IMAGES ONTHE INTERNET

The 2DWG meta-database is a searchable database of two-dimensional (2- D) electrophoretic gel images found on the Internet. A meta-database c ontains information about locating data in other databases - but not t hat data itself. This database was constructed because of a need for a n enriched set of World Wide Web (WWW) locations (URLs) of 2-D gel ima ges on the Internet. These gel images are used in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Flicker Server to manipulate and visu ally compare 2-D gel images across the Internet. User's gels may also be compared with those in the database. The 2DWG is organized as a spr eadsheet table with each gel image being represented by a row sorted b y tissue type. Data for each gel includes tissue type, species, cell-l ine, image URL, database URL, gel protocol, organization URL, image pr operties, map URL if it exists, etc. The 2DWG may be searched to find relevant subsets of gels. Searching is done using the dbEngine - a WWW database search engine which accesses selected rows of gels from the full 2DWG table. The 2DWG meta-database is accessible on the WWW at ht tp://www-lecb.ncifcrf.gov/2dwgDB/ and the NCI Flicker server at http:/ /wwwlecb.ncifcrf.gov/flicker/.