HUNT: launch of a full-length cDNA database from the Helix Research Institute

The Helix Research Institute (HRI) in Japan is releasing 4356 HUman Novel T ranscripts and related information in the newly established HUNT database. The institute is a joint research project principally funded by the Japanes e Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and the clones were sequenc ed in the governmental New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Org anization (NEDO) Human cDNA Sequencing Project. The HUNT database contains an extensive amount of annotation from advanced analysis and represents an essential bioinformatics contribution towards understanding of the gene fun ction. The HRI human cDNA crones were obtained from full-length enriched cD NA libraries constructed with the oligocapping method and have resulted in novel full-length cDNA sequences. A large fraction has little similarity to any proteins of known function and to obtain clues about possible function we have developed original analysis procedures. Any putative function dedu ced here can be validated or refuted by complementary analysis results. The user can also extract information from specific categories like PROSITE pa tterns, PFAM domains, PSORT localization, transmembrane helices and clones with GENIUS structure assignments. The HUNT database can be accessed at htt p://www.hri.co.jp/HUNT.