Informatics for mutagenesis: the design of Mutabase - a distributed data recording system for animal husbandry, mutagenesis, and phenotypic analysis

The increasing use of high-throughput methods for the production of biologi cally important information and the increasing diversity of that informatio n pose considerable bioinformatics challenges. These challenges will be met by implementing electronic data management systems not only to capture the data, but increasingly to provide a platform for data integration and mini ng as we enter the post-genomic era. We discuss the design and implementati on of such a data capture system, 'Mutabase', as a model of how such electr onic systems might be designed and implemented. Mutabase was created in sup port of a large-scale, phenotype-driven mouse mutagenesis program at MRC Ma mmalian Genetics Unit, Harwell, in collaboration with SmithKline Beecham Ph armaceuticals, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, and Imperial Colle ge of Science, Technology and Medicine, London. The aim of this mutagenesis project is to make a significant contribution to the existing mouse mutant resource, closing the phenotype gap and providing many more models for fun damental research and disease modeling. Mutabase records experimental detai ls at the 'point of generation' and provides a number of dissemination and analysis tools for the experimental data, as well as providing a means of a ssessing various aspects of progress of the program. Mutabase uses a hypert ext-based interface to provide interaction between a number of intranet-bas ed client workstations and a central industrial strength database. Mutabase utilizes a variety of techniques in order to implement the user interface system including Perl/CGI, Java Servlets, and an experimental CORBA server. We discuss the relative merits of these methods in the context of the need to provide sound informatics approaches for the support of systematic muta genesis programs.