MitBASE: a comprehensive and integrated mitochondrial DNA database. The present status

MitBASE is an integrated and comprehensive database of mitochondrial DNA da ta which collects, under a single interface, databases for Plant, Vertebrat e, Invertebrate, Human, Protist and Fungal mtDNA and a Pilot database on nu clear genes involved in mitochondrial biogenesis in Saccharomyces cerevisia e. MitBASE reports all available information from different organisms and f rom intraspecies variants and mutants. Data have been drawn from the primar y databases and from the literature; value adding information has been stru ctured, e,g,, editing information on protist mtDNA genomes, pathological in formation for human mtDNA variants, etc. The different databases, some of w hich are structured using commercial packages (Microsoft Access, File Maker Pro) while others use a flat-file format, have been integrated under ORACL E. Ad hoc retrieval systems have been devised for some of the above listed databases keeping into account their peculiarities. The database is residen t at the EBI and is available at the following site: http://www3.ebi.ac.uk/ Research/Mitbase/mitbase.pl. The impact of this project is intended for bot h basic and applied research. The study of mitochondrial genetic diseases a nd mitochondrial DNA intraspecies diversity are key topics in several biote chnological fields. The database has been funded within the EU Biotechnolog y programme.