May 1, 2006 (Vol. 26, No. 9)
URL:
http://germonline.yeastgenome.org
Rating:
Strong Points: Much useful information
Weak Points: Nothing significant
Summary:
Providing “a cross-species community annotation knowledgebase that provides microarray data relevant for the mitotic and meiotic cell cycle as well as gametogenesis,“ GermOnline has a cornucopia of information about genes that are important for sexual reproduction. Visitors can search the database by 12 different species, including yeast, Arabidopsis, maize, Drosophila, mouse, and humans. The interface is simple, though slightly confusing. Users can specify searches by species, biological process, molecular function, and cellular function. The confusing part is that each of the last three categories can be searched independently, though it appears on the search engine that one is searching all simultaneously. That’s a very minor gripe about an otherwise excellent site.