PLANT GENOMIC DATABASES FOR OILSEEDS CROP IMPROVEMENT

Plant genomic databases are collections of huge information on plants, germplasm accessions, descriptors, plant genetics, physical and genomic sequence maps, QTLs, loci, sequence information, molecular markers, references etc. At present more than 100 plants genomic databases are available. These are dedicated to generic genome data focusing on specific crops. Some of the important oilseeds plant databases include Castor Bean Genome Database, CGPDB, SoyBase, Legume Information System (LIS), Brassica database, Sinbase etc. Due to availability of number of genomic databases for crop plants before using any of these databases the researcher needs to visit most appropriate database and choose suitable parameters for genomic information mining. The wealth of information available to researchers today can be overwhelming hence; understanding the plant databases for harnessing genomic information is the need of the hour for crop improvement research programmes.