September 1, 2009 (Vol. 29, No. 15)
Rating:
Strong Points: Great descriptions of various tools, clear organization
Weak Points: None
Summary:
When it comes to deciphering scientific acronyms, this page could easily serve as the Final Jeopardy clue. Once you’ve figured it out—“What is Arabidopsis THAliana map?”—you’ll be relieved to find that the tools on this site are much more intuitive than the name itself. AthaMap offers a collection of potential transcription factor binding sites in Arabidopsis, as determined experimentally or through the use of alignment matrices. Advocates of simplicity will love the Description page of AthaMap, which clearly explains the website’s search function (to view the sequence of the potential binding site), colocalization function (to identify combinatorial elements), and gene-analysis tool (to identify common binding sites among a number of genes). Alternatively, if one merely wants to browse through the 109 transcription factors referenced in AthaMap, one needs only click to the Documentation page, which lists the transcription factors and their pertinent literature references.
